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Comment by governate | Hacker News Reader

This is one of those words you just avoid using, as an American, because it’s an insult to persons of Italian descent in the United States. That may be due to an association with some of the trivia related in this article?

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I don't get why this was downvoted. Maybe not enough old people here to remember when this was an actively used slur?

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=guinea&defid...

I’m old enough to tell you what I was doing when Kennedy was assassinated, grew up in the former world headquarters of the KKK (Indiana), and this is news to me. I vaguely recall that the term could be derogatory, but forgot who was supposed to be insulted.

So how do you go about buying a guinea pig?

> Could I have that cute 2 months old Cavia porcellus, please?

Or just ask for 'that cavy'.

The article mentions 'guinea men' to refer to the trading ships that shuttled between Britain, South America and 'Guinea', but I can't help but imagine a hypothetical breed of six feet tall, dapperly clothed, bipedal guinea pig.

Like the one that Beatrix Potter imagined?https://imgur.com/a/tjktk

Denmark solved that problem by calling them "Marsvin" - Sea pigs. We then choose to also use that exact same name for harbour porpoise (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harbour_porpoise)

Ask for a cavy.

Are you thinking of “guido”?

No, that's a separate slur for Italians. "Guinea" is also a slur for Italians: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_slurs_by_ethnic...

Guinea is also an offensive derogatory term for italians in the US.

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