COKE in the M aryland

[Jonathan Lighter]

My ongoing monitoring of the slang vocabulary persuades me that "dope," "weed," "pot," "grass," and "reefer," and even "mary jane" never "died," and therefore have never been "revived."

The synonymous "tea" and "gage," however, favorites of jazz musicians in the '40s, are almost certainly moribund. One difference is that "tea" and "gage" did not receive the wide and repeated media coverage enjoyed by the other terms.

Having said that, I would emphasize that the death of slang terms is often highly exaggerated.

JL

Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU> wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Laurence Horn
Subject: Re: COKE in the M aryland
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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 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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