COKE in the M aryland

[Laurence Horn]

At 5:22 AM -0800 3/8/05, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>What could be more passe' sounding than "pot" and "weed"?  Oh, I
>know ! "Grass."
>
>JL

Isn't "pot" sort of like "cool", a slang item that's evolved into the
standard lexical item for that particular meaning while still
retaining its colloquial status (as opposed to "marijuana")?  I guess
(although I didn't know it before David's post and my field research)
"dope" turns out to be more like the other shorter-lived in-group
labels that cycle through.  I'm not sure whether "weed" is more like
"pot" and "cool", or (more likely?) a formerly moribund item like
"dope" that has been revived, for whatever reason.  Could be there's
a regional flavoring, and perhaps there are movies, TV shows, etc.
that influence usage on this.  Now I'm wondering which of the
categories "grass" is in.  For me, "weed" sounds dated (= stuck in a
particular past time) in a way that "pot" and "grass" don't, but it's
not just my daughter's datum that informs my knowledge of its
revival.  My son was in a dorm (oops, excuse me, residence hall)
during his freshman year (2001) that is officially named Wilmarth
Hall, but which is known informally as "Weedmart".

L

>Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU> wrote:
>---------------------- Information from the mail header
>-----------------------
>Sender: American Dialect Society
>Poster: Laurence Horn
>Subject: Re: COKE in the M aryland
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>At 9:30 AM -0500 3/7/05, David Bowie wrote:
>>From: Jonathan Lighter
>>
>>
>>
>>: As for "dope," one assumes, perhaps less confidently, that "dope"
>>: (fool) comes earlier than "dope" (illicit drugs). Furthermore,
>>: "dope" (specif. "marijuana") is so common a term nowadays that to
>>: refer to the drink in that way would be discordant. "Coke" (the
>>: drug) interferes less because expensive, more strongly tabooed, and
>>: less common on campus.
>>
>>I'm not sure that "dope" meaning marijuana is actually all so common
>>nowadays--to me it seems like a horribly old-fashioned term, the kind of
>>thing you laugh at when you see old shows on Nick at Nite, definitely not
>>something that's really in active use *now*.
>>
>even in the collocation "smoke dope"? I'd be very surprised if
>that's passÈ already. Wait, let me ask a handy 20-year-old
>informant, home on spring break...
>
>Hey, David's right (well, the sample size is small, but still...).
>My informant did come up with the right gloss for "smoke dope", but
>she hesitated briefly, and said that her familiarity with the
>expression was from TV. (She questioned whether it would come up
>much on Nick at Nite--maybe more likely on old SNL reruns.)
>
>She informs me the unmarked form (well, she didn't call it unmarked,
>but...) is "smoke pot", and the standard slang term would be "smoke
>weed".
>
>Larry
>
>
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