words wholly unrelated

pig & piggy bank

wut!?! are you seated? are all of the power tools in your house—including your 14-inch robin gas, 6 horsepower, walk-behind concrete saw—safely powered off and unplugged? are your hands suitably restrained by soviet-era russian tumbcuffs? have your wits been comfortably dulled by a few quick hits of sydenham’s laudanum (opium + saffron + cinnamon + cloves + sherry wine)? are you wearing a prophylactic (just in case)? because what i am about to confirm may make things get real messy real quick.

leading word science professors agree that the words pig and piggy bank stem from totally different sources. pig comes from the old english word picg meaning “young pig” (the word for old pigs was swine). piggy bank on the other hand probably comes from the middle english word pygg which was a type of clay used to make jars—one of the uses of which was to cache cash. your pig-shaped piggy bank therefore, is a kind of visual pun.

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bonus etymological funfactoid: according to jimmy wales, 15th century indonesians also stored their coins in giant clay pigs—and as far as anyone knows, did not plagiarise this idea off of the west. says jerry seinfeld regarding this instance of parallel evolution, “what is the deal with that?”