Word To Use Today: cavy.

If you can't afford to go to Iota Geminorum IV for your holiday this year, then don't worry.

The planet's most famous inhabitant, the tribble: 



exhibit at the New Mexico Institute of Space History (yes, apparently). Photo by Stilfehler

may be banned from Earth, but we have a brilliant substitute which is also nice, soft and furry, and makes a pleasant sound:



black roan abyssinian guinea pig. Photo by Jean.

Yes, it's the guinea pig or cavy.

If the guinea pig seems a little dull, a little sublunary, then consider this: cavies do not exist in the wild, and no one is completely sure where they've come from (unless it's Iota Geminorum IV).

Here's a toddler cavy about eight weeks old:



and as far as I am concerned that photograph is quite enough reason for this post.

Still, the word cavy is itself interesting, too.

Word To Use Today: cavy. Obviously, guinea pigs do not comes from Guinea and they are not pigs. No one knows why they are so called. The word cavy is derived from cabiai, the animal's name in the language of the Galibi tribe from French Guiana.

It's rather satisfying to know a word in Galibi, even if the Galibi might have borrowed the word from the Portuguese, who themselves might have borrowed it from the Tupi word saujà, which means, sadly, rat.