Tab Trivia

Yesterday I added the picture of a Tab can to the top of this blog, and it makes me smile every time I see it. It's kind of an "in joke" for people who know me, because I'm a devoted Tab drinker and I've taken a lot of teasing about it over the years. There aren't many of us left anymore, so much so that just being seen with a can of Tab in my hand can be a conversation starter. The two comments I hear most often are: "I didn't even know they still made that stuff," and "Oh yeah, my sister-in-law/cousin/best friend drinks Tab." As I always say, I can't be the only one still drinking it.

I didn't actually take that picture, by the way, I just googled "Tab beverage" and found a great site with several pages of all things Tab. Did you ever wonder how the Coca Cola company came up with the name Tab? Here's the answer, from the site's FAQ page:

When Coke was looking for a name for their diet cola, they configured an IBM 1401 computer to print all four letter word combinations that had a vowel. This generated over 250,000 words; they also added names suggested by employees. After cutting out stupid combinations, Coca-Cola narrowed the list to 600 possibilities and checked each of these against existing trademarks. By the time of the final selection, there were less than two dozen choices left. TABB was the final choice. Before production began, the superfluous "B" was dropped, leaving us with TAB.

So long live Tab! As long as Coke keeps making it, I'll keep drinking it. I may even play around with the colors on my blog, to better coordinate with the famous bright pink can.