You might be surprised to read in a 1931 issue of TIME magazine that prison authorities found “muggle-smuggling a perplexing problem.”

Huh? They were smuggling non-magical muggles?

It’s not what you think.

The Atlantic Wire explains:

The term has been fair game ever since the Oxford English Dictionary added it back in 2003. (Harry Potter author JK) Rowling says she fashioned the word as a play on the British slang “mug” or “an easily fooled person.”

That makes sense, but the fact is the term was in use much earlier, beginning with the New Orleans jazz crowd, as a term for a marijuana cigarette.

Read the rest here: “Before Harry Potter, ‘muggles’ meant pot.”

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