Water / a beverage that contains small gas bubbles

Question

What is normally called fizzy water that contains many small bubbles of gas?

1. Carbonated water
2. Sparkling water
3. Soda

To me they all mean the same thing, though I think "soda" is a sweet type of (carbonated / sparkling) water, though I'm not quite confident.

The same goes with every other beverage. Does "carbonated" and "sparkling" work the same with any other liquid / beverage except for water?

Please kindly enlighten me.

Answer 1

This is something that can vary depending on where in the English-speaking world you are. There are also some words that are used very precisely within the beverage industry, but perhaps more broadly and imprecisely by the general public.

Here are a few terms that apply to unflavored, unsweetened, carbonated water:

• Carbonated water is not really a special term, it's a technical phrase that describes water put under pressure and supersaturated with dissolved carbon dioxide. At atmospheric pressure, the CO2 spontaneously comes out of solution in the form of little bubbles. Thus, it's an umbrella term that includes all the other varieties I'm listing below.

• Fizzy water I think of as distinctly British and I think it means any carbonated water, but I welcome any correction from a BrE speaker.

• Sparkling water (sometimes sparkling mineral water) is water that is naturally carbonated by dissolving carbonate minerals underground. It will also contain other dissolved minerals. Some people may use "sparkling water" to mean all types of carbonated water, but in some places it is illegal use the label "sparkling water" commercially if it is not naturally carbonated.

• Club soda or soda water is an artificial imitation of sparkling mineral water. Dissolved minerals and carbonation are added by a manufacturer in the bottling/canning process. Each maker of club soda has their own proprietary recipe, but sodium bicarbonate is a common ingredient, which is where the "soda" name came from.

• Seltzer water (or just seltzer) is water that is carbonated on-demand, often with a CO2 cartridge in some hand-held device. I used to think of seltzer as an old-fashioned term dating from the mid-20th century when a soda siphon might have been a feature of a luxuriously-appointed home bar (or a prop in a Three Stooges episode). The term has become more common in recent years as home carbonation kits like the SodaStream have become popular. Some people may use the term to mean any carbonated water.

When you are talking about sweetened, flavored beverages, then the most technically precise phrase would be carbonated beverage. What people call them in everyday speech varies a lot depending on where in the English-speaking world you are, you might hear any of the following:

soda; pop; soda pop; soft drink; fizzy drink; tonic; coke

Note that tonic is the name of a particular flavor and Coke is a specific brand, but there are places that use these words as generic terms for all carbonated beverages.

Here's an article with a map showing the geographic distribution of these terms in the USA.

Answer 2

There is an honestly almost insane degree of regional variation here, and there is even some dialectal variation in highly localized cases.

• Carbonated Water: Will usually be understood as water with enough carbon dioxide or carbonic acid dissolved in it to cause it to spontaneously produce small bubbles of carbon dioxide at room temperature. Using the term ‘drink’ or ‘beverage’ instead of ‘water’ makes it more generic and will often but not always be understood as a drink of some other sort that is similarly carbonated.
• Sparkling Water: At minimum has a similar meaning to carbonated water, but may have far more specific implications about the origins of the water (possibly even legally defined in some parts of the world). The term ‘sparkling’ is also used of wines and juices that have carbonation (champagne being the classic example, with the term ‘champagne’ actually being used as a generic term in some parts of the world for any sparkling wine).
• Mineral Water: May be sparkling or ‘still’ (no carbonation), this almost always refers to natural spring water, with any carbonation typically being from a natural source. In some places, ‘sparkling water’ implicitly means ‘sparkling mineral water’.
• Soda: This one is a bit complicated. Soda water was historically water that had sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) dissolved in it, which produces some degree of carbonation (albeit less than directly dissolving carbon dioxide or carbonic acid), with it historically being used as a heartburn cure (mostly because of the high pH of the sodium bicarbonate, not the carbonation it produced). This eventually became what is known today as club soda, which is a (usually unflavored) drink used mostly as a component in mixed drinks designed to approximate natural mineral waters. The term ‘soda’ has become a generic in some English-speaking countries to refer to flavored carbonated drinks such as Coca-Cola. Sometimes also ‘soda pop’ (see below).
• Pop:: Derived from the term ‘soda pop’ and used as a generic in pretty much the same way that ‘soda’ is, this seems to mostly be an American term (that is, I’ve only ever heard it used by Americans).
• Tonic: This term originally meant a medicinal drink (and still does to some extent). ‘Modern’ tonic water is an ingredient in some mixed drinks, and consists of quinine (a bitter alkaloid compound used to treat certain parasitic infections such as malaria, which coincidentally makes tonic water fluoresce a rather brilliant blue color under ultraviolet light) dissolved in water. Depending on context and where you are, ‘tonic’ by itself may refer to tonic water, or it may refer to tonics in the general medicinal sense, or it may even be used as a generic for carbonated drinks similar to how ‘soda’ is used. Many of the oldest carbonated beverages were originally medicinal preparations (Coca-Cola being a prime example), hence the association with the term ‘tonic’.
• Seltzer: Sometimes also ‘seltzer water’, this is usually synonymous with ‘carbonated water’ or ‘sparkling water’, though ‘seltzer’ by itself may be used as a generic similar to ‘soda’ or ‘tonic’.
• Cola: Is yet another generic term used similarly to ‘soda’ or ‘tonic’. In some places it has particular implications about the flavors involved, and it often means that the drink in question has caffeine in it in high enough concentrations to actually be considered caffeinated. This originally referred to drinks that used the kola nut as a major ingredient (such as the original formulation of Coca-Cola).
• Soft Drink: This one has an interesting history. Originally, it referred to a d mixed drink that did not include ‘hard’ (high proof or high %ABV) liquor. It’s still occasionally used in that sense (and ‘hard’ is still used in some places to refer to certain types of alcoholic beverage, such as hard cider), and extrapolation from there to other intoxicants (for example, the cocaine that was in the original formulation of Coca-Cola) lead to usage as a generic in the same sense as ‘soda’ or ‘tonic’.

In addition to all of this, there are some more generic adjectives such as ‘fizzy’ and ‘bubbly’ that have come to be used as generic nouns for such things, and quite a few brand-generics such as ‘coke’ that are used for these as well.

Answer 3

Yes those are all correct. There is a great deal of dialect variation (and even "idiolect" variation, I mean variation from person to person, even if they speak the same dialect)

"Carbonated water" sounds quite technical, like an scientific document about water types. It is the term used by wikipedia.

The consumption of carbonated water and non-alcohol carbonated beverages increased by 12.4% in the period 2012 to 2016.

"Sparkling water" sounds like advertising talk: not boring "still water" but exciting "sparkling water". So Perrier and so on are called "Sparkling water".

Bottled water? Certainly, sir. Would you like still or sparkling?

Soda water is a type of sparkling water that is used as a mixer with whiskey. It is usually highly carbonated and contains sodium bicarbonate, which gives it a particular flavour.

Individuals have their own words:

fizzy water, bubbly water, seltzer, pop, coke, ...