02 Feb

stoned or baked

Who taught: Stan and Braverman family

Stoned or Baked (source: http://www.nogoodforme.com/)

A few days ago, I wrote about “edible.” Well, yesterday, I learned a new thing about the word, edible. What if someone on the street asks you like, “Hey do you have any edible?” What would you answer? I would try to think whether I have my lunch box or not. If I have, then maybe my answer would be, “Yes, I do. Why?” Well, that answer could be very dangerous. Do you know why? It is because the word, edible, also means something else. It means marijuana. In my opinion, this usage of the word is not very common in the east coast but in the west coast. How funny is it? You can say “it is edible” to mean something people can eat. And, all of a sudden, the other people would possibly think you have marijuana.

Speaking of marijuana, drug is a big issue in the United States. Hunting my house around, I have learned a lot. One of the things I got to know is related with the size of high schools. Some parents prefer to move to a school district where its high schools are small in terms of class size. The reason is that it is better to prevent their kids from getting into troubles with drugs. Another thing that I learned is that there are many cops in high schools during the day with dogs to find out whether there is any drug or not in the schools. That is scary to hear. In my whole life, I have never even seen any drug.

There are a few expressions that are related with drugs. When you do drugs, you become very happy and kind of abnormal, laughing a lot with no reason. At least, that is what I heard. 🙂 Then, people say, “Are you high?”, which sounds easy to understand. But, there are other expressions such as stoned or baked. Some people say, “Are you stoned?” or “You are baked, right?” These are ridiculous. There is no way we, non-native English speakers, can figure out what they mean. It is like, “Are you saying that some people throw stones at me and I got hurt? or Are you saying I was in the oven for a while?” I actually do not get these. What are the origins of these expressions? Can anyone tell me? For example, a few weeks ago, Stan posted his old picture in which he is smiling on his Facebook. I commented, “Stan, you look so happy.” And, a few hours later, one of his friends added another comment, “You look totally baked.” I was like, “What is going on? What the heck does this baked mean?” I had to look up all the dictionaries to find out what that means. Luckily, there was Urban Dictionary. Without it, my life in the U.S. would be a lot harder. Urband Dictionary is my friend and…… your friend too.