0339 - On it. - 2024.04.01 |
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Comment: Normal college students give each other piggy-back rides around campus, right? ...also, hey, why is it called "piggy-back", when pigs don't carry each other like that? There are other mammals that do carry their young on their backs, why don't we call it "anteater-back" or "koala-back"? Also, for that matter, why are double-bunches of hair called "pigtails"? If you saw a ponytail, then a pony, then pigtails, it would be reasonable for you to assume that pigs have two tails, and they don't! There's one other pig-word in the English language that I had always kinda assumed is antisemitic in origin: the "piggybank". Think about it - if you live in medieval England, and you want to keep your pennies away from the tricksy Jews, what's the best thing to hide them in? But I did some research (i.e., ten seconds of Googling), and as it turns out, piggybanks are actually based on a pun. There's a type of clay called "pygge", you see, and one day some potter received a request for a "pygge bank", and the rest is history. It also makes sense with the way pigs were used in the Middle Ages: after you're done eating, you toss them your scraps (in this case, your change) and when you want to enjoy the end result of that accumulation... well, the original piggy banks didn't come with stoppers in the bottoms - you gotta kill the pig to get the meat inside. A fitting financial metaphor, and a good way to teach small children about both the importance of saving and of not getting too emotionally attached to the livestock. |
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