I would look at the list in its totality and not focus so much on individual terms. It is very clear that there distinctive lexical differences between the Mandarin spoken in China and Taiwanese Mandarin. I find the difference similar to that between British English and American English. The accents are quite different too.
It’s soft-serve. It’s a common term.
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Yes exactly
Looking at it like this is misleading to me like kids saying 冰淇淋 in Taiwan is some kind of Chinese conspiracy. Like these are just regular words from the language.
Google trends clearly shows that both words are used in Taiwan although bingqilin is more common just as ‘ice cream’ is more common that ‘soft-serve’ in American English.
You kind of asked your native speaker informant the wrong question.
I don’t mean to be a jerk but the reason you think it is not frequent and you have only encountered it years later is that your Taiwanese Mandarin lexicon is not very large,
Sure. It’s a typical kind of local ice cream which many people associate with ice cream in general.
No one is saying that kids using the word bingqilin is a Chinese conspiracy. The list is just showing that there is lexical variance between Taiwan and China. Taiwan apparently uses the word shuangqilin and China doesn’t. That’s all.
Explant was talking about ‘China terms’ though. To me this is just needless politicising. Its like let the kids eat their ice cream, not every single thing has to be about politics.
Also the bit earlier about using 大陸 as ‘pandering’ - or even panda-ing - to the Chinese… that doesn’t make sense to me.
Of course there is lexical variance. However many or even most of these words are used in China in my experience. The impression that there are two distinct lexicons with one word used in Taiwan, and another used in China, is mostly false. I never had an experience where I used a word that was not recognised due to lexical splitting. One or two rare occasions where I was asked for clarification. Like if you said 捷運 and they asked you mean 地鐵？Like very very occasional blips only, 99.9% of the time the interaction does not stumble on such lexical differences.
A very common ‘blip’ is the different meanings of 小姐. And that is the same word.
I have no trouble communicating in China although there are real differences. Everyone knows that I learned to speak Mandarin in Taiwan as soon as I open my mouth. Part of that is accent. Part of that is lexical differences. I think this is very important as do most people who buy into ‘Taiwan consciousness’.
Yes, but this does not make 小姐 a ‘Taiwan term’ its just a connotation on a word that came from a social context. Pretty much everyone in the Chinese speaking word is aware of the conventional meaning of the word, and of the seedy connotation that it has in certain contexts. It’s a Taiwan quirk at most that the risk of drawing attention to the connotation is less obvious in Taiwan.
My experience for the past year: I’ve only heard a single Taiwanese person say 大陸 and it’d because she lived in China for a decade and got the habit from them. And the other person I was with commented “ohh she said 大陸，I think she must like China”.
My friends, my wife’s friends, their family members I’ve met, everyone says 中國 中國 中國 中國.
Seriously, where are all these people who are supposedly happy to say 大陸？
Really? When I lived in China everyone referred to China as 中國
Frequent references to 大陸 in my experience is a phrase that is more characteristic of speech in Taiwan.
According to the google search graph its more frequently used in the northern part of Taiwan.
I mean when Chinese people want to specifically reference the mainland area without Taiwan
In my experience they would say 內地 for that.
I live in Taipei and always hear 中國 
Good to hear that people are using the correct terminology 
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Well if you lived in China, I didn’t, so you’ll know better than me on this one. But all the Chinese people I’ve ever met have always corrected me to say I should say 大陸 as a part of their 台灣也是中國 speech. Maybe they’re just using that one because my Chinese is shit?
In my experience they do say 大陸 sometimes but are not entirely enamoured with the term as it can have negative connotations of being looked down upon. I lived right by the HK border there in Shenzhen so maybe that was part of the local usage there. I know Chinese people in Taiwan too and they also prefer 中國
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OK, what your explanation for guniang not being used in Taiwan.
How about toutiancu (townhouse)?
I never heard that word used in speech in Chinese ever. I encountered it in a song once. Come to think of it I am pretty sure it was a Taiwanese pop song, lol.