Trying to figure out street names for a drug. Literally, it can be anything at this point. Kind of looking in the range of names like black tar heroin (nick named tar) or crystal meth (nicknamed glass or just crystal). Just to show that I'm not asking you to write the story, here are what I came up with. Diamond Dust Quartz And that's it. That's all I got. Some characteristics. -It's cheap to produce and cheap to buy -It has some hallucinogenic properties. -Mostly it makes you paranoid as the high wears off.
cheetin. It cheats against more expensive drugs. You leave reality with the hallucinations. And after, you wonder if you'll get caught, like you were cheating.
I always thought it would be comical to have a street drug called: blah. As in, "Your honor, if it pleases the court, may I play the taped conversation labeled state's exhibit 9?" Tape rolls, "Hey man, you got any blah?" "You mean blah?" "Yeah, blah...you got any?" "Are you a cop?" "No, man just asking about blah..." To answer your OP: How about: Trinket or trink for short. Or tariff or riff for short. Or cut (as in cut-priced). Or base (as in basement price). Or po (as in cheapo). Or some acronyms: DAD (dime a dozen). BC (bargain counter/conscience). AAB (at a bargin). CH (cheap high).
Now you're in my territory. My future-set road novel feature drugs and I'm having to do the exact same thing as yourself. I need authentic sounding drug names, but it's not as easy as I thought it would be. Off the top of my head... Real words: Black Onyx Sloe Birdlime Epoxy Gunk Made up words: Denolin Moxyfrin Lokey Damn, it's easier to come up with names for someone else. If you don't use Gunk I'm having it!
Hi OurJud, I think I've read a portion of your story -- you're better suited for a Gov control name (or a drug that's introduced through food "soylent green" or something like: casomorphin 8 <-- real BTW.) A gov controlled drug will have an official sounding name, ie, Brave New World - Soma. (What I call the 'Catch Phrases/Words'.). The only reason I say this is because in your excerpt(s) I didn't sense an underworld yet... I mean, I'm sure there is an underground, that's the tension, but usually in the underground is trying to get you 'off' the government drug. From my dystopian novel: Every third floor, the public notice placards were attached to the three walls of the stair’s landing. The placards were at eye level, exactly forty-two inches off the floor. Even when the stairwells were dark, the placards were painted with some type of glow-in-the-dark paint. “Socialism Equals Justice,” on one wall. “Science Ends Poverty,” on another wall. “Capitalism Is Pathology,” was painted on the other wall. Most public notices were easily remembered three word catchphrases. The phrases were a designed indoctrination as easy to remember as “ABC.” Cannibalized haiku’s of minimalism so that only the desired thought control remained. Who thought of three words as anything sinister? "I love you" is easily equated with “Authority Loves Equally.” It really didn’t matter. We were so far removed from the ideals of socialism and capitalism that those words had no real meaning. We only had a vague idea that socialism was good, capitalism was bad, and that the Authority had been and was our savior from those systems. “Authority Loves Equally.” Why not? I stopped on the eighteenth floor to catch my breath and noticed someone had written the symbol of the Authority, a capital A over an eye-shaped oval, followed by “Brain Washed Brains Are Clean Brains.” He had written it several times, one line on top of the other, as if he were writing a punishment assignment on a black chalkboard. “I will not talk in class…I will not talk in class.” His statement was humorous and oddly true, but I wondered where he had gotten a marker. If the Authority saw this attempt at humor, they wouldn’t find it humorous. An unannounced search for contraband would follow. Floor by floor the Heradites would search and not stop until the item was found or someone confessed. Any confession would not be enough, the contraband would have to be found and destroyed. Then the guilty party would be slated for reconditioning or, in extreme cases, reuse. Worse, any known associations of his would be thoroughly integrity tested. I’ve seen entire cliques of citizens disappear due to one person’s single infraction. No one is perfect, but integrity testing insisted that you be. Even the most devout citizens feared integrity testing. I was terrified of it, but apparently, even terror wasn’t enough to stop me this morning. I was going to purposely violate an Authority rule as I had done for months now.
I been doing a lot of pork. Makes me grunt, for sure, that roll around in mud, expressing myself. You can't beat it, though wake up covered in crackling, have to peel off, big blisters afterwards so beware side effects. I'll make a call if you want to join me, one time offer.
Thank you, Jud. Have a slice - my man only got ham till Tuesday. Tweaking on the mustard, wholegrain fantasy. You know what I mean? Thinking 'Panzer' for OP's drug name, or 'cock' maybe. You got any cock? I got cock Is it white cock? The best white cock. In your pocket? No, my cock is in the trunk. When am I gonna sniff that cock? You'll sniff cock. I'll fetch it I take my cock home, and I cook my cock, make crack. Crack is better than cock. That's what she says, and watches me, with my crack on the mirror, ouch.
What you're describing sounds like crack laced with an opiate or LSD. But, I don't know that it would be all the cheap to produce. On the other hand, if you're looking for a fictional drug: - barf - tool - smug
Fictitious prescription drug names are easy; Metodine, Opazine, Drozac, Lunacal, Zental... pretty much anything ending in 'ine' or 'ac/al' But like Kalisto I need street names, specifically for a drug that comes as a liquid in little glass vials, taken by snapping the neck off with your thumb and throwing the stuff down your throat. I really like Gunk, but it doesn't describe the product. Sorry to hijack, but I very nearly started the exact same thread last week, so it saves me doing so now, if you don't mind me piggybacking.
How the zeitgeist comes up with and settles on a name for a thing is a difficult dynamic to determine, and more often than not causes these names to come off a bit hokey in stories. As in the example you gave for crystal methamphetamine being called glass or crystal. In LGBT circles it's called "Tina". Crystal > Christina > Tina. You would have to understand the nature and evolution of LGBT slang to grok how that word came to be otherwise it feels unintuitive and overworked. Another is ecstasy. At some point during the height of people taking ecstasy, the word roll was settled on as a noun for the pill itself and also a verb for the act of taking it and being under its influence. "Does anyone at this party have rolls?" "Yeah, in the back yard everyone's rolling." "Really?" "Yeah, some random guy came in from back there and I swear his face was sliding off." During university days I rolled tons of times, from the cleanest of clean white Mitsubishis to the dirtiest smily faces and rainbows, but roll and rolling isn't how I would ever have described the feeling had I been asked to pick words for the thing and the feeling of doing the thing. *shrug* With all that said, I feel that Diamond Dust and Quartz are overworked and overthought. I actually like @matwoolf's proffer of cock. It feels inappropriate, street, dirty, fraught with double entendre and a built-in capacity to confuse and obfuscate what one is talking about when looking for or talking about the drug. I can see a host of derivative terms coming from it as regards the act of taking it that are equally obfuscatory and cheeky to the ears of those not in the know. "Man, I need some cock." "Sorry, bruv. Fresh out. Got right rogered last night, though. Be walking funny for a month, me." "Anyone else here have cock?" "Yeah, out back there's plenty of cock. It'll cost'ya, though." "Don't care. I ain't been bummed in a month and I'm just twitching for it."
If you call your drug cock, I'd recommend it being administered by letting it dissolve in the mouth like rock candy. "What's up with John?" "Dude, he's such a cock head. He's been sucking cock all night." "I thought he was off the cock." "Naw, man, he's always got cock in his mouth. I know it's only a matter of time before he's so desperate for cock he's taking it up both ends." And, to take it back to the main topic, I assume your fake drug has a crystalline structure? *Sugar *Salt *Glitter *Candy
Not at all That's what this forum is for! For people to bounce ideas and help each other write something awesome. I know. That's why I posted it!
Slang terms come from culture, so the question is what do people in your culture talk about and how do they think. I'm writing a near future that has an occasionally mentioned drug problem - in my case a resurgence of LSD as the drug of choice for upper class youth. I've calibrated my youth culture to have a weird obsession with late 1950s/early 60s nostalgia - so theres lots of girl groups, people dressing in poodle skirts, retro references, tail fins on cars - you name it. As part of this, young women in the culture (known as "Brills") often present in stereotypical hyperfeminine ways - lots of pink, ponytails, headbands, skirts, etc. Recently, I had two Brills talking about getting high on LSD while listening to a new album, the line of dialogue I used was something like, "I put the album on repeat, hit some Lucy, and pinked out on the floor of my apartment - not even joking." They refer to LSD as "Lucy" as a reference to the Beatles song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" - which given the nostalgia obsession they recognize - and refer to getting high as "pinking out" because there's so much pink and stereotypical femininity in the subculture that associating anything with the color pink automatically makes it cool in Brillspeak (and because the drug is known to cause kaleidoscopic hallucinations). That's a long example - but the point is that your cultural reference points are important. Slang terms also tend to be short - ways of describing thing that are less verbose than technical names. For instance "Methamphetamine" is usually shortened to "Meth" by casual observers, but in slang it's often referred to with even more monosyllabic, easy to remember terms like "Crank" (United States) or "Ice" (Australia). The use of "Ice" is particularly illustrative as it references the color of the powder. Just for reference - think about other real life popular names for drugs - Marijuana - Weed, Pot, Grass (two out of three based on appearance) Freebase cocaine - Crack, Rock (both based on appearance) Synthetic Marijuna - K2, Spice (I think these both started as brand-names). Amphetamines - Speed (effect-based) -all really simple, mostly based on appearance. Also there are a few examples of fake drugs I've seen in fiction. Flash - a drug referenced in Gene Rodenberry's "Andromeda" White - short for "Ketracel White" - not a drug but a forcibly addictive substance used to enslave race in "Star-Trek: Deep Space Nine". Spice - from Dune "Quartz" works if it's a crystalline substance and your people have a good reason to know what actual quartz is. If you have a dark-colored drug a la black tar heroin, I would consider calling it "Dirt" - or maybe "Oil" or "Grease" if it's liquid.
Would the street name for a drug be capitalized? Logic tells me it wouldn't, as I don't ever recall seeing things like weed / coke / speed, etc, capitalized. For a fictitious one, however, my instinct is to capitalize for some reason.
The drug awareness posters from high school made a startling return; I knew from the first toke this would be a struggle of mammoth intensity. Gone were the days of giggling and being a television show character. The new strains came from laboratories that I imagined to be like a flora-labour prison camp. The inner narration of it all was at once humouring and dehumanizing. Excellent material for a travel monologue. The vivid images of family members prevented concentration, as they were of a genetic nature, rather obscene. "Mind over matter," I told myself, for the sake of the conversation. Others I imagined were trying not to pay attention to my now over-sized ears. Heart palpitations lead to a focus on my general state of health. My self-esteem, the underdog thus far, had been car-stricken. "I'm going to take off, guys," I finally told the others. I only worried about what they might be saying for five minutes.
That is so moving, Brian. Likewise. my ears have grown quite enormous, and my elf is similarly affected [hoh...hoh, hoh, hoh] as your own good elf is threatened. I wrote these drog words for OP last week, btw: Dildy Breadcrumb carrot hoop Reference to your predicament: I found several hours locked in any lavatory, alone, normally does the trick. When I took that first puff of 'charisma,' I actually visioned the bulk of my character float through the window in a cloud of smoke, I chased, chased it. Finally I lost it, arrived at the petrol station to grab provisions for a long night alone. The automatic doors would not open. I held my face in my palms, 'I have lost all presence,' I cried, all to my myself, only, of course. Anyway, such is mephator.
What's this from, BrianIff? Is this a passage taken from a novel or your own work? If it's the latter I'm mightily impressed as that's some damn fine writing there!!
You should call it Blittz. Mainly because if you were to combine those two things together I am pretty sure it would have a PCP/ Death affect >.>
Honestly, it's Brian, I think he understands. He is a lovely writer: Canadian English - often archaic word choice, winter themes.
