OF SODA POP AND HAM,

I've been talking with my coworkers about my "Speak Like a
Native New Englander" series and one of them told me how
when she was a child and her family was on vacation in Florida
she ordered a "tonic" and was teased by the waitress about
drinking hair tonic. I was going to do a post on the soda/pop/
tonic terms for soft drinks but I wisely checked Janice
Brown's Cow Hampshire first and sure enough, she did a
post on it two years ago on it, and there's a reference to
hair tonic. Go check that out here!

I will note, however, that while we in the Boston area call it
tonic, my cousins from Milan N.H. were calling it "soda pop"
or at least were some fifty years ago when I first noticed the
difference.

And the other night one of the ABC commentators referred to
the Celtic's training facilities in Waltham and pronounced it
"Walthum".

Tsk, tsk. It's Walth-ham! Obviously, he's not a native New
Englander!