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Code Switch: Word Watch Each week, we take a look at a word or phrase that's caught our attention, whether for its history, usage, etymology, or just because it has an interesting story. This week, we look into how we came to call cannabis "marijuana," and the role Mexico played in that shift.
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Code Switch: Word Watch

What Does 'Sold Down The River' Really Mean? The Answer Isn't Pretty

Slave auction in New Orleans, 1842, "Sale of Estates, Pictures and Slaves in the Rotunda, New Orleans." The nation's most active slave market was in New Orleans. Slaves who had been "sold down the river" were auctioned off to plantation owners. Encyclopaedia Britannica/UIG via Getty Images hide caption

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Encyclopaedia Britannica/UIG via Getty Images

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What Does 'Sold Down The River' Really Mean? The Answer Isn't Pretty

Being "sold down the river" means you've been betrayed. It used to mean something far worse. NPR's Code Switch traces the history of the phrase and spells out its original meaning in the first half of the 19th century.

The Ugly, Fascinating History Of The Word 'Racism'

The Carlisle Indian Industrial School became a model for dozens of other boarding schools for Native Americans. The government would eventually make attendance compulsory for Native children. Library of Congress hide caption

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Library of Congress

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The Ugly, Fascinating History Of The Word 'Racism'

The first recorded utterance of the word was by a man named Richard Henry Pratt, whose legacy among Native Americans and others is deeply contentious. His story illustrates problems with how the word is used today.

Zoinks! Tracing The History Of 'Zombie' From Haiti To The CDC

A still from the 1943 film I Walked With A Zombie. RKO/The Kobal Collection hide caption

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RKO/The Kobal Collection

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Zoinks! Tracing The History Of 'Zombie' From Haiti To The CDC

Zombies populate our books, graphic novels, movies and video games with race and slavery playing an unexpected role. Our national obsession with zombies dates back centuries and can be traced to Haiti. Code Switch examines how the word "zombie" was born and how it has taken a life of its own.

Don't You Dare Call Me A Hipster! I, Sir, Am A 'Hep Cat'

Jazz trumpeter Louis Armstrong signs autographs in the Blue Note nightclub in Chicago in 1948. Edward S. Kitch/AP hide caption

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Edward S. Kitch/AP

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Don't You Dare Call Me A Hipster! I, Sir, Am A 'Hep Cat'

Jive-talking, jazz-loving "hep cats" from the 1930s and 1940s are the great-grandparents of today's hipsters. The interest of white fans in black music helped fill Harlem's nightclubs and prompted derision. Hipsters were criticized for being the equivalent of a "pretentious poet laureate."

A History Of Indentured Labor Gives 'Coolie' Its Sting

Nine out of 10 workers on the transcontinental railroad were Chinese. These indentured laborers, derogatorily called "coolies," became a prime target for criticism in the mid-19th century. Joseph Becker/Library of Congress hide caption

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Joseph Becker/Library of Congress

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A History Of Indentured Labor Gives 'Coolie' Its Sting

Although the slur today is used mostly in the context of the Caribbean, in the past it was often applied to low-wage, immigrant laborers in the United States.

What A Thug's Life Looked Like In 19th Century India

A photograph of a group of elderly men sitting on a mat, taken in Peshawar, now in Pakistan, circa 1865. Two of the men are looking at each other with contempt, suggesting that they may actually be enemies who have been persuaded to be photographed together as examples of native "thugs." Getty Images hide caption

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Getty Images

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What A Thug's Life Looked Like In 19th Century India

Today's thugs can trace their literary ancestry to the highway robbers who formed the Thuggee Cult of India. The thuggees were hunted down, imprisoned or killed in the 19th century during British rule.

Where Do 'Hoodlums' Come From? San Francisco

Anton Refregier's Beating the Chinese is a panel in the History of San Francisco mural at the city's Rincon Center. Chinese immigrants were frequent targets of hoodlums in the late 19th century. Carol M. Highsmith/Library of Congress hide caption

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Carol M. Highsmith/Library of Congress

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Where Do 'Hoodlums' Come From? San Francisco

The unexpected story of how the "young men and lads" who "commit acts of violence and mischief" came to be known as hoodlums. The term was first widely used in the 1870s in San Francisco, where gangs often targeted Chinese immigrants.

The History Of How A Shogun's Boast Made Lincoln A 'Tycoon'

The arrival of Commodore Matthew C. Perry's "black ships" in Tokyo Bay in 1853 helped persuade the Japanese to negotiate a treaty. Perry had more firepower than all the coastal artillery defending Tokyo Bay. AP hide caption

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AP

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The History Of How A Shogun's Boast Made Lincoln A 'Tycoon'

What do Commodore Matthew Perry, President Abraham Lincoln and writer F. Scott Fitzgerald have in common? Go ahead and guess. The answer involves an inferiority complex, a nickname and a novel cut short by the author's untimely death.

How Far Is It To The 'Boondocks'? Try The Philippines

The "boondocks" or "boonies" refers to places that are in the middle of nowhere. But few people know that the phrase was made mainstream by a fatal military training accident. iStockphoto.com hide caption

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iStockphoto.com

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How Far Is It To The 'Boondocks'? Try The Philippines

For more than half a century, Americans have used "the boondocks" or "the boonies" to refer to a place in the middle of nowhere. But few people know that the phrase is a relic of American military occupation in the Philippines that was brought into the mainstream by a fatal training accident.