It is a brutal battle found anywhere on campus -- the battle of soda vs. pop, wooder vs. wattah and rubber bands vs. gummy bands. It's a never-ending fight found at parties, football games or get-togethers -- as long as there are Philadelphians, Pittsburghers and New Yorkers there.

A decade ago while bouncing a quarter off a table into a shot glass during college parties, Michael Ellis III, a 1985 University graduate, said slang arguments were inevitable.

"Before I knew it, we were fighting about who spoke right and who ate the right thing," he said.

These arguments were so frequent, he decided to write books teaching the art of "slanguage" found throughout the world. These 14 books range from New York-talk to Korean-speak and are popular in the big cities, Ellis said.

The books are popular because people want to learn the slang and fit into a certain area and be able to communicate in the "right" way, he added.

Each area sports its own, individual dialect. A dialect is a variety of language used by a group of people and has features of vocabulary, grammar or pronunciation distinguishing it from other types of speech.

Philip Baldi, linguistics professor, said these dialects reflect group membership, and arguments students have are attempts to express loyalty to their region.

"When you're home, you don't think about your language, but here you become aware of the differences," he said.

Erika Shumaker (junior-psychology) said she never thought her language might be incorrect while growing up in Pittsburgh, but now that she is in State College, she has realized the words "to be" are not found in Pittsburghese.

"I would say, 'My clothes need washed,' and my friends from Philly would say, 'You mean, 'to be washed?' "

Shumaker said she was taught this grammar by her parents.

"I've been through English classes and my parents are well educated . . . no one ever thinks about it there," she said.

Daniel Walden, professor of American studies, English and comparative literature, said young people are more apt to pick up whatever is the avant-garde of the population.

"When they admire something, they are going to imitate it until it's not popular anymore and it will be dropped," he said, adding that the imitation of others in a population is a subconscious effort.

The origin of the different pronunciations in certain areas has to do with historic geographical isolation, said Pat Johnson, associate professor of anthropology and women's studies.

Shumaker and her boyfriend Kevin Brooks (senior-real estate) of Philadelphia, constantly pokes fun at the way the other says things.

Brooks looked up the words "pop" and "soda" in the dictionary when he was outnumbered by four Pittsburghers to prove which was the correct word to describe the carbonated beverage.

"They were all wrong . . . it's soda," he said.

It is common for people to change their dialect depending on the situation they are in. Shumaker said she still says "pop" when she is home but changes to "soda" when she is with her boyfriend.

But Baldi said people should hold on to their dialect.

"They have those things and there's no reason for them to give it up," he said.

From hoagies to heroes, yuze to yunz and coffee to cawfee, the language differences can be found everywhere -- even the ice cream parlor.

"People here say jimmies. I keep calling them sprinkles, and they're like, . . . 'no, no, they're jimmies.' Please," said Alyssa Schultz (senior-anthropology) of Queens, N.Y.

Brooks noticed that people in Central and Western Pennsylvania have no idea what jimmies or sprinkles are, adding, "I've heard people say, 'I think I've heard of those things once before.' "