Contentious issue I know, but recently I’ve encountered a number of people who believe that Ohio (and sometimes Indiana and Michigan) is not truly part of the Midwest. Which to me is preposterous since I’ve always considered Ohio the most quintessentially Midwestern state. Midwest to me has always been very nearly synonymous with rust belt, but it seems there are a fair number of people who place the Midwest more in what I’d call the Great Plains, or Greater Minnesota. So I’m wondering where do you all place the Midwest.
I'm definitely a midwesterner, born in MO, lived all over the place, and now live in MN.
I've called it "soda" my whole life. "Coke" was definitely confusing in the southeast. "I'll take a coke." "What kind?" "Wtf?"
I think the real lexicological definition is "ope"
Do you ope? If so, you are a midwesterner, there are various flavors of midwesterner, but that is one important characteristic.
i know a poor soul who moved from the north atlantic seaboard to rural deep southern appalachia and then once worked a drive thru at mcdonald's and had to parse "errinj coke" into a sensible order for an increasingly impatient customer
as a kind of semi apologetic interjection, right? like "ope! look at the time!"
“Ope, let me just squeeze by ya right here”
"Ope, lemme squeeze past ya and steal the ranch"
That's pretty much it. Although it can also be used like a less aggressive "hey!"
Nearly bump into someone in the hall? "Ope!"
Someone examining the spices for 5 minutes when you just need to grab the salt? "Ope, scuse me, just gotta sneak by ya there."
Etc.
Having spent some years in the south, clearly "errinj coke" is a fanta orange, or Sunkist if you're lucky.
sunkist in this case, yeah
I ope, when in trouble
wtf is ope
Death to America
An interjection that can mean something along the lines of "Oh, sorry, excuse me" or "Hey, you ran into me!" Etc. depending on context.
Death to Traffic