How are we supposed to write US for US characters when you guys can't even agree on what you call soda/coke/pop/whatever?
But see, therein lies the magic of our English. You can give a character a whole lot of definition simply by the words you choose to put in his or her mouth.
"Hey, hon," the waitress said, giving her gum a loud snap. "Whatcha want to drink?"
"What do you have?" the young man asked, flipping the menu over looking for a list of beverages and failing to find more than the daily specials.
"Coffee and coke."
Coffee? Ugh, it was ninety degrees in the shade.
"Um, all right," he said, not looking forward to the sickly sweet soda but so thirsty he'd pretty much drink spit if that's all they had that was wet. "Guess I'll have a Coke."
"What flavor?"Now, from reading the above, I know that the scene is set in the south and the young man is not from the south. All because northerners and midwesterners don't refer to all carbonated beverages as "coke" even though southerners do.
Lynn
