Got A Piggy Bank...?

First of all, let me wish you all a safe Friday 13TH.

That's right! We have 3 of them this year, and that's really unusual. Usually the most we have in a single year is 2. Wonder if that is a good sign or a bad one?

Now, about this piggy bank thing. At one time or another, I'm sure nearly every kid has had some kind of piggy bank. Ever wonder where that name came from? I'm gonna tell ya!

Probably since the advent of coinage, people have been looking for places to keep their money. Sticking dollar bills under the mattress is a relatively new innovation, but putting valuables into jars stretches back centuries. And clay jars have been around for thousands of years, with pot sherds found in China dating back as much as 18,000 years ago, according to the Associated Press. So it only makes sense that early "banks" were simply jars of clay.

According to the Straight Dope, an orange type of clay was rather popular in the Middle Ages, and used for storage of everything -- including valuables and money. The jars made from this orange clay weren't shaped like anything special -- and certainly not like pigs. Rather, they probably looked like regular clay jugs, unadorned in order to keep them economical.

That orange clay used to make these jars was called "pygg" and the jars themselves were called "pygg jars."

Originally, "pygg" was probably pronounced something closer to "pug" than "pig," but as the language evolved and our pronunciation of vowels shifted, "pygg" became a homophone for "pig." And at roughly the same time -- a few generations different, give or take -- the modern meaning of the term "banking" came to be. Together, "pygg jars" became "piggy banks," and soon after, were stylized to look like the animals from which they do not get their name.

I gleamed all this information from a post over at "Now I Know" right here.

Isn't it fun to learn all this almost worthless stuff? Just never know when it might come in handy!

Coffee on the patio this morning. Maybe some biscuits and baked ham snacks to go along with it?