When an Austrian candy maker needed a name for his new line of mints, he took the first, middle, and last letters of the German word pfefferminz, or “peppermint,” to form the brand name PEZ. He later marketed the candies as an alternative for smokers and packaged them plastic dispensers in the shape of cigarette lighters. The candy proved so popular that now PEZ dispensers come in all shapes and sizes. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Pez Name Origins”
You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it.
I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette.
In 1927, an Austrian named Edward Haas III created a little flat candy that was flavored with peppermint oil.
Now, you may know, Grant, that the German word for peppermint is pfeffermints.
Oh, pfeffermints.
It starts with a P, right, as in German.
And for the name of this little candy, he took the first letter in Pfeffermans, P, the middle letter E, and the last letter Z.
And in German, that’s pronounced Petz.
But in English, we pronounce it Pez.
Pez.
Oh, I see.
It turns out that Haas was a big anti-smoking advocate, and he saw a market for smokers trying to quit.
And by 1948 he was selling these little mints in plastic dispensers that were designed to resemble cigarette lighters. Isn’t that cool? And then, yeah, selling them to smokers who were trying to kick the habit.
Eventually he moved to New York City and decided to reach out to the children’s market.
He realized there were lots of kids who would like this candy, and so the dispensers over time evolved into these little cartoon characters and the stuff that we now appreciate as Pez candy.
So it’s a sugar shaped as a rectangle or long box, right?
And the best thing about it is the way the little head spits it out.
Yeah, they snap it.
Yeah.
That’s the meanest.
I mean, how many times did you refill your Pez dispenser just to get them?
Oh, I know.
I know.
And you can collect them all.
There’s actually, you know, there’s a worldwide Pez collectors group.
They call themselves Pez Heads.
Pez Heads, of course.
And every year they have Pez-a-mania, which is a collector’s convention.
I think the next one is in Cleveland.
Right?
But an origin story for a thing that seems so ordinary is pretty interesting, right?
Yeah, yeah.
I like this.
So Haas, H-O-S-S?
H-A-A-S.
Okay, Haas.
H-A-A-S.
And it’s from the German word for peppermint.
Peppermint.
Pez.
Pez.
Nice.
I have some more stories like that.
I’ll show you later.
Later, though, right?
Yeah, later in the show.
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