Asian = Oriental, etc.

[Dennis R. Preston]

>Wrong hemisphere Beverly. "Guinea" in Guinea hen refers to fowl from
>the West Coast of Africa (the "guinea Coast"). My folk etymology of
>why southern Italians (perhaps Sicilians in praticular) got to be
>called "guineas" (hence "Guinea T) stems from the fact that they
>were known as raisers of these fowl, perhaps particularly in urban
>aras where the keeping of animals was not common. Anybody got the
>"real" etymology?

dInIs









>But why Guinea? to match Bermuda shorts? (another passe' term, I suppose)
>
>At 08:37 PM 2/8/01 +0800, you wrote:
>>At 6:29 PM -0500 2/8/01, Beverly Flanigan wrote:
>>>
>>>Guinea T???  All I know is the guinea pig--which I assume was a real type
>>>of pig originally?
>>>
>>>_____________________________________________
>>IIRC (an acronym for Mark's benefit), a Guinea T is what is even more
>>offensively (or differently offensively) called a "wife-beater"--a
>>tank top T-shirt.
>>
>>larry
>>

--
Dennis R. Preston
Department of Linguistics and Languages
Michigan State University
East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA
preston at pilot.msu.edu
Office: (517)353-0740
Fax: (517)432-2736