9. Trump Wants Sugar in Coca-Cola

Ok, now the most important section where we look in detail at the vocabulary.

So word one this week was fizzy, which is an adjective, and it means a drink with bubbles or gas.

Now we have other words for this, sparkling and carbonated. So what’s the difference?

There are differences in usage that depend on context.

Sparkling is most commonly used with water – sparkling water – but sparkling can also describe wine – sparkling wine – or juice – sparkling apple juice, for example.

And you can use fizzy in all those contexts as well, but sparkling sounds more refined and also more natural, more healthy.

Fizzy is often used for sodas and sweet drinks with bubbles. It’s more informal and fun. So for example, a fizzy orange drink.

Carbonated is a more technical term used in science or product labelling. It applies to any drink that has carbon dioxide bubbles, including soda, water or beer.

So how can you describe Coca-Cola? You wouldn’t typically call it sparkling because that sounds too refined for a soda, but you can definitely call it fizzy, and officially it’s a carbonated beverage.

Now, what’s the opposite of fizzy, carbonated and sparkling? Do you know? Still, S-T-I-L-L, still.

How about flat? You can describe a drink as flat. What does it mean if “I say the Coke’s gone flat!”? F-L-A-T.

This means it should be fizzy, and it used to be fizzy, but it isn’t anymore. Maybe the bottle was open and it’s been left for a while, so it’s gone flat. So that’s a negative thing.

By the way, at the end of the news story, I used the term political fizz, if you remember. What does that mean?

Well, the word fizz can be used metaphorically. So here it’s a noun – fizz, F-I-Z-Z, and it comes from the sound and energy of a fizzy drink. Bubbly, lively, full of movement. And it’s often used in an informal, figurative way to suggest excitement or energy.

It can also be used in a business context, not just a political one. For example, Her presentation really added some fizz to the meeting. It added excitement or energy.

Ok, vocabulary item number two was tweak, with a long /iː/ sound – tweak – which is a small change made to improve something.

Typical things you might want to tweak? A recipe, as in the news story today with Coke, a machine or a setting, a design or layout, a piece of writing, or a system or plan.

A tweak is a small change, not a big one. It’s usually made to improve something, not to fix a serious problem. It’s informal, but very common in both speaking and writing.

Now you can say a major tweak, and I actually came across a usage like this when I was researching this news story. And I thought, hang on, but a tweak is a small change. Well, even if a tweak is major, it’s still just a modification, so not a complete rebuild. And in fact, if you say a major tweak, you don’t mean a huge change, actually. You just mean a very important change. So it still keeps its meaning, even when you say major tweak or big tweak, of adjusting something that already exists, not replacing or redesigning it entirely.

Number three is beverage. This is a formal or neutral term for a drink, for any drink, but especially non-water or non-alcoholic drinks. And it’s, it’s formal, as I said. It’s more formal than drink. It’s often used in menus, hospitality, business, airline services, etc.

For example, Hot beverages are available in the lobby. You might see that in a hotel. Or Choose your beverage, tea, coffee or juice.

How about the pronunciation? It’s pronounced beverage. No, it’s not. I’m just joking. Of course, it’s not. Now if you’re a loyal listener, and you listened diligently to Episode 5, you’ll know it’s not pronounced beverage. You’ll know how it’s pronounced exactly. It’s pronounced… beverage. Because in that episode, I went into detail about the -age suffix, which this word has, too.

And as a suffix, this is pronounced /ɪdʒ/, like an i sound, like an I sound. /ɪdʒ/. So beverage.

And it’s really only two syllables. Bev-rage.

You can put a little /ə/ – bev-e-rage, three syllables – but I say beverage in my standard accent.

It comes from French, but be careful, because in French, I believe it has often a negative connotation or a connotation of something being weird, and it doesn’t have that connotation in English. It’s neutral in English.

How about the term soft drink? Is that the same? No, this is a narrower category. A soft drink is a sweet, carbonated – so fizzy – non-alcoholic drink, for example, coke, lemonade, orangeade. It sometimes includes still drinks like squash or iced tea, but not always, but it’s always non-alcoholic.

So for example, He ordered a soft drink instead of a beer.

Ok, number four was kick the habit, which is a fixed phrase. We can modify it a little bit, but I’ll show you how in a minute.

Kick the habit means that you stop doing something that you do regularly, especially something unhealthy.

So the Americans have to kick their sugar habit, as we heard in the story.

Another example, She’s trying to kick her habit of eating too much sugar.

She used to be a heavy vaper, but she kicked the habit last year.

She bites her nails, but she’s determined to kick the habit.

I don’t know why it’s all women with bad habits in my examples. Sorry about that!

This is different to cut down on, which means reduce. So I’m trying to cut down on sugar means I’m trying to eat less sugar. But if you kick the habit, you stop something completely.

Now I said it was a fixed phrase. It’s not exactly 100% a fixed phrase. You can change it slightly, for example, She kicked her habit of eating too much sugar.

But what you can’t say is, I’m kicking Coke. To kick Coke. That’s not an expression you would use because it does collocate very heavily with habit. So you would more naturally say, I’m trying to kick my coke habit. So you can add Coke in front of habit. You can add smoking, sugar, things like that. Or you can say her habit – kick her habit – kick his habit, my habit… But most typically, kick the habit, as a fixed phrase.

Ok, number five, leave a bitter aftertaste. So what does this mean literally? An aftertaste is a noun that describes the taste that stays in your mouth after you’ve eaten or drunk something.

And bitter is one of the basic taste sensations: sharp, unpleasant, like strong coffee or green tea. Although I love coffee, actually, but you get used to it, I suppose. It is bitter.

Another example could be medicine: That medicine left a bitter aftertaste.

So that’s the literal meaning. The figurative meaning describes a situation that feels unpleasant or disappointing afterwards. For example, Losing the contract so unfairly left a bitter aftertaste for the team.

We can say then that cane sugar and the switch to cane sugar might leave a bitter aftertaste for American corn farmers because they’ll lose business. And I did say this in the news story, and it plays on both meanings: taste and emotion; literal and figurative.

Do you drink Coke? I used to when I was younger, a bit more, and I had it in glass bottles, more typically, and later on, cans, but now I find it too unhealthy and sweet. However, I really crave it – I really, really want it – when I’m tired, especially when I’m travelling. So that’s really the only time I drink it. It’s weird, but I suddenly crave a Coke when I’m tired. My body’s saying, Sugar now! Fuel me!