Why is that stuff people smoke called “tobacco?
” See that guy in the corner smoking that sweet-smelling stuff? The guy with the silly grin. The one muttering, “oh, wow, far out!” That stuff is not called tobacco. We’re talking about the substance that American Indians originally inhaled through the nose. Yes, they whiffed it up the old proboscis. There are two theories how the word was engendered, and the first is directly connected to this Indian habit. The two-stemmed pipe they used was called the tubac, from which we get . . . you got it. The other theory is that in the Caribbean, the rolled up leaves, smoked cigar-wise, was called a tabac. My theory is that some etiquette book of the time cautioned that if you were at a party and wanted to light up, you should step out in tabac to do it. Source: THE OXFORD DICTIONARY OF ENGLISH ETYMOLOGY In brief, Polly want . . . Contrary to what most of us think, parrots have a limited vocabulary, usually no more than 20 words. But it can be quite expressive if those words are limited to four
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- Why is that stuff people smoke called "tobacco?
