Pubdate: Sun, 23 Nov 2014
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2014 The New York Times Company
Contact: http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/lettertoeditor.html
Website: http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: Jessica Bennett

'VAPE' JOINS POT'S LINGO, WITH HAT TIP TO OXFORD

"Back in my day, it was just weed; it was just getting high," said 
Joel Schneider, 55, sipping a cup of coffee. "Vaping? No. We'd never 
heard of vaping."

Mr. Schneider, the owner of a pot-friendly bed-and-breakfast in 
Denver (it brands itself a "bud-and-breakfast"), had just learned 
that "vape" was chosen as the Oxford Dictionaries 2014 Word of the 
Year. That is, a group of lexicographers got together and measured 
the word's use, determining that the term - used to describe the 
process of inhaling and exhaling the vapor produced by an electronic 
cigarette (or "vape pen") - had proliferated, along with the habit. 
(Last year's word of the year was "selfie.")

"The growing popularity of e-cigarettes, combined with the legal 
cannabis industry, created a perfect storm," said Katherine Martin, a 
lexicographer involved in the selection.

Yet "vape" is only the tip of the linguistic iceberg, at least when 
it comes to marijuana. Spend a few days in Colorado, where pot has 
been legal since January, and you stand to end up tongue-tied more 
than once. Weed? Nope. It's now "cannabis," a subtler term. "Smoking" 
has become "consuming," or, if it's with a vaporizer, "vaping." Pot 
itself is often referred to as "product," and the industry is 
referred to as the "cannabusiness."

"There is definitely a new vernacular that comes with the dawn of 
mainstream cannabis," said Andy Juett, a Denver comedian who runs a 
pot-themed show. "There, I just did it: I wouldn't have even used the 
word 'cannabis' two years ago."

Call it cannaslang. Linguists say its evolution is not particularly 
surprising: Drugs have long produced a casual lexicon. There are at 
least 200 synonyms for the word "drunk," as chronicled as early as 
1737 in something called The Drinkers Dictionary.

Yet when it comes to pot, the new terminology goes beyond describing 
the high (though, indeed, "green out" is the new "black out"). There 
are now terms for the business (pot entrepreneurs are 
"ganjapreneurs") and its sociology (bias against stoners is 
"cannabigotry"). The act of disliking a person who vapes is called 
"vape vitriol"; "cannasseur" refers to a pot connoisseur.

Some of the words are silly, but others are strategic: a way to give 
pot some class. "We work very hard to mature the messaging and 
vernacular of this industry," said David Kochman, a lawyer for 
OpenVape, a Denver-based company that manufactures vaporizers. He 
notes that "buds" are now referred to as "flowers," and "trim" (the 
leftover parts of a marijuana plant once the flowers are removed) is 
"raw material."

As for vaping, the word itself appears to date back to 1983, 
according to Oxford, when it was used in a scholarly article to 
describe "an inhaler or 'noncombustible' cigarette" that looked "much 
like the real thing" but delivered nicotine through a vapor. It would 
be a decade before it would catch on, appearing in online forums amid 
the jargon of marijuana. Yet even a few years ago, if you heard the 
word, you might have been more likely to think "Star Trek" than 
e-cigarette, said Axie Blundon, OpenVape's social media director. 
"You imagined vaporizing somebody into thin air," he said, "like a stun gun."

These days, vape beat out "slacktivism" (lazy activism) and 
"normcore" (grandpa fashion worn as a statement) - as well as another 
pot term, "budtender" - for the grand word title.

"I feel like vape is a more refined term," said Chandler Davis, a 
24-year-old budtender in Denver. "Here and there, we're making 
smoking a little classier."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom