And while we're at it, is it a copier or a Xerox machine?

Maps are great. They're always readily available to tell you a few things about yourself:

1.) You're lost.

That about sums it up.

But maps can be interesting when you're not lost in some remote West Virginia mining town where two men are playing banjos on a porch and staring at you intently. Maps can document the ways in which we talk. According to this map from East Central University (that being in Oklahoma, in case their school name was a little too vague for you), this is how each American county names their soft drinks. (Click on image for larger view.)

In short, counties in a shade of blue call their soft drinks pop. (Picture The Andy Griffith Show, with Opie telling his Paw that they should share a pop while they sit beside the ol' fishin' hole.)

Counties in red call their soft drinks coke. (This could be because Coca-Cola originated down south, and asking people to be imaginative is sometimes asking too much.)

Counties in a mucus-y/bile looking yellowy-green call their soft drinks soda. (Pronounced "SO-der" by New Englanders, who are all able to see the invisible letter R at the end of words.)

Counties in a solid shade of green call it "other." (Or, rather, tonic or fizz or whatever mood they're in on a given day.)

What this map doesn't show? What people call Kleenex across the country. Is it Kleenex? Is it tissue? Someone needs to make a map of this. I can't make up my mind, and I'm easily susceptible to peer pressure.