Why is marijuana called pot ? Lexicographer David Maurer, an expert on underworld slang, once posited that pot is shortened from potiguaya, a term that, it turns out, isn’t Spanish. He later surmised that pot comes from potación de guaya, meaning “drink of grief,” but that proposed etymology also proved wrong. It’s been suggested that pot references the pot in which marijuana is grown, or pod, specifically the plant’s seed pod, but the truth is no one really knows why weed is also called pot. Ernest Able’s 1982 book, A Marihuana Dictionary: Words, Terms, Events, and Persons Relating to Cannabis (Bookshop|Amazon) has a comprehensive discussion of these terms. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Nobody Knows Why Marijuana is “Pot””
Hey there, you have A Way with Words.
Hello, this is Robert Koehling.
I’m calling from Charlotte, North Carolina.
Welcome to the show.
What’s on your mind?
Well, one of the most pressing questions of our time is on my mind.
And I was just curious about how the word pot became synonymous with marijuana.
P.O.T. Pot.
Yes, P.O.T. Pot.
And why is this question on your mind?
People have been using that expression forever, and I just wonder how it got started as all the two terms became synonymous.
Okay, yeah. As more and more of the country finds the state laws about marijuana being relaxed, this kind of language maybe is recirculating with a new urgency or frequency.
So medical marijuana or other things.
I mean, I even hear politicians using the word pot when they’re, you know, so it seems to be coming more of our vernacular.
Yeah, it’s funny that you would get that sense because while it was a very popular name for, while pot was a very popular name for marijuana in the 1950s, it had faded by the end of the 1960s and other terms like weed took over.
Although it’s always kind of still been here.
You know, it’s one of those terms that never completely fell out of favor from when it first appeared.
And we can find examples of it as early as 1936.
The underworld slang lexicographer David Mora, and that’s a title that anyone would relish, underworld slang lexicographer.
He had some theories about it.
And one of the first theories that he spread was the idea that it came from a Mexican, Spanish, or Portuguese word, potigaya or potagaya.
However, these two words, and you will find this given as the etymology of pot in lots of reference works, including mainstream dictionaries.
However, those words do not seem to exist.
There is no evidence for them in Portuguese or Spanish anywhere at any time, except when they’re talking about the supposed origin of this word.
So it really looks like this one guy, who is well-respected in the slang world, kind of spread this possible origin.
And later he gave it up.
He thought that it probably was not the case and suggested that perhaps it comes from the expression potación de guaya, literally supposedly meaning a drink of grief, basically a potion of grief.
And you said this was in 1937?
36, yeah.
Originally it was the 1930s, and then later he revised it by the 1950s.
But this other expression also doesn’t seem to exist in Spanish.
Spanish speakers did not and do not call it potación de guaya.
And it’s not really clear at all where he got that from.
So perhaps he had an informant who misled him.
I don’t know.
But you’ll find it, again, mentioned in legitimate real reference works who just have kind of borrowed from each other and not really done their own legwork, which is a lexicographical sin.
So where does this leave us?
That leaves us with two other theories.
One is that supposedly maybe it comes from the pots in which you might grow marijuana.
Of course, many plants grow in pots.
So why this one plant?
Why does it get the name pot?
And the other one, perhaps it comes from the word pod, P-O-D, which coincidentally later, after pot had already existed, also was used to refer to weed or marijuana.
But the order of events is wrong here.
Pod is newer than pot.
So it’s hard to say that pot could come from pod.
And pod because, you know, you might have seed pods on a marijuana plant.
But again, all of these theories are rubbish for various reasons.
And we are going to have to slot pot in the big fat origin unknown category.
Well, you guys are amazing.
You really, I totally enjoy your show.
And I think what you do is awesome.
Yeah, our pleasure.
By the way, if you’re looking for a book about marijuana in general, there’s a book called The Marijuana Dictionary, and it’s spelled with an H instead of a J in marijuana, by Ernest Abel, A-B-L-E, from 1982.
You might be able to find it in used book websites or used bookstores.
As far as I’m concerned, it has the most comprehensive summary of the hypotheses about the origin of pot, and the book in general is well-researched and well-gathered.
Well, thank you for the reference.
Yeah, our pleasure.
Call us again sometime, Robert.
Oh, sure. Thank you very much.
And take care of yourself. Bye-bye.
You too. Thank you.
Bye, Robert.
Call us to talk about the slang in your world, 877-929-9673, or send your stories about language to words@waywordradio.org.
