the.com/guinea
A pig that isn't from Guinea, a coin that isn't either — geography's biggest troll.
means A British gold coin once worth a pound-plus-a-bit (21 shillings), and separately, that plump little rodent people keep as a pet and call a pig — neither one, confusingly, actually from Guinea.
from The coin came first: minted from the late 1600s from gold shipped from the Guinea region of West Africa, so the English just named it after the gold's source. The guinea pig's name is murkier — it's native to South America, not Africa at all. One theory says traders stopped in Guinea en route to Europe, or that the animal was confused with a Guinea-imported cousin; another suggests 'Guinea' was just loosely used for 'somewhere foreign and far-off.' Nobody's fully sure, which is itself the joke.
- name origin
- likely a mangling of Guyana, not Guinea
- old coin
- British gold coin, worth 21 shillings
- luxury pricing
- posh goods still priced in guineas for prestige
- rodent misnomer
- guinea pigs are from South America, not Africa