What word (or how do you phrase things) do you use when the ostensible word for the class is the same as the word for a subset of the class?
For example, in the United States, there are many brands of sugared, carbonated soft drink that one can buy: Coca-Cola (or Coke), Pepsi, RC Cola, Sprite, 7-Up, A&W or Mug Root Beer, etc). The first two are kinds of 'coke' or 'cola' (but no one says 'cola').
But in some parts of the US (namely the south), one asks for any type of such drink as 'coke'. How does one then ask for the particular kind of 'coke' that is 'Coke' (pronounced the same)? Does one reduplicate and say a 'Coke coke', does one repeat with emphasis (or without), does one use a different word like 'coca-cola' (co-cola), or what?
The (perceived) difficulty (surely those in the South are able to get the drink they want somehow) isn't limited to there. Where the drink is called 'soda', if you ask for a 'coke', you'll still sometimes have the choice among Coca-Cola, Pepsi, etc. "Can I have a Coke?" the response might be "Is Pepsi OK?". "Sure, Pepsi, Coke, whatever." You don't use 'cola', you just ask for the particular kind and hope the listener will help differentiate.
- Given these multiple strategies for disambiguating, what do you do say to get a 'Coke' in the southern US?
- are there any other examples of a hypernym being the same as the hyponym, and so creating a disambiguation problem?