Re: I refer to a non-specified carbonated beverage as a:

In most of Australia it's a softdrink. Reading above, some of you would also class Milk as a softdrink, but that makes me think it's carbonated milk. And that tastes foul (we have a Soda Stream when we were kids and I had to try ....).

Some years back I was in Tasmania (Australia's southern-most state) and they call it 'Cordial'. Which to me is the non-carbonated version of the same thing. I'm not sure if they still do that .. any two-headers around?

Classes of drinks as I see them:

Water
Milk (includes flavored)
Juice
Cordial (includes Gatorade)
Hot Drinks (tea, coffee, hot chocolate)
Softdrink (includes Guarana 'fizzy' drinks)
Beer
Wine (includes mixers)
Spirits (includes some Cocktails)
Liquers

These classes are the generics that I would use in the phrase "Anyone here want a $class"? (And it's Hot Chocolate, not Cocoa .. my wife accidently made herself mug of cocoa once and nearly threw up!)

Comment on Re: I refer to a non-specified carbonated beverage as a:

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Re: Re: I refer to a non-specified carbonated beverage as a: by belg4mit (Prior) on Sep 11, 2003 at 01:37 UTC
Technically, milk is a soft drink. There are two classes of drink, hard (alcoholic) and soft (everything else). Hence hard cider. But then, way back when, you didn't exactly used to pay for water and you weren't likely to find milk on tap anywhere. `-- I'm not belgian but I play one on TV.`	[reply]
Re: Re: Re: I refer to a non-specified carbonated beverage as a: by Caillte (Friar) on Sep 15, 2003 at 09:30 UTC
Cider is cider and cider is an alcoholic apple-based product, at leat it is to an Englishman. This once caused some confusion when I got quite irate with an American friend when he told me he was giving his seven-year-old a bottle of cider to drink ;) The same American got angry with me when I once told him I had a bag of chips for dinner ;) Wonderful thing, language! This page is intentionally left justified.	[reply]
Re: Re: I refer to a non-specified carbonated beverage as a: by Anonymous Monk on May 28, 2004 at 07:48 UTC
I don't know where in Tasmania BigLug was, but cordial here has always referred to the noncarbonated syrupy drinks. 'Fizzy drink' or 'fizzy cordial' is probably the most common in domestic situations, but still 'soft drink' is just as frequently used in more formal senses. BTW the two-header reference goes to show Australian mainlanders are still just as naive as they always were	[reply]