Why do they call them potholes?

We call them “potholes.” And when we hit a particularly deep, jarring one, we may refer to them as %@!*ing potholes. These abrupt breaks in pavement come in all shapes and sizes, cause thousands of dollars of damage to cars, trucks and buses, and they’re a growing fiscal problem for local, state and national budgets. But where does the name come from?

Folklore has it that the famous road builders of the Roman Empire, more than 3,000 years ago, were hampered by potters who dug up chunks of clay from the smooth highways of that time. The clay became pots, and hence the name. But that doesn’t entirely make sense, since Roman roads were made of a combination of stones, lime, course sand and sometimes metal.

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