Why human guinea pig instead of human rat?

[liirogue]

Why is the phrase human guinea pig instead of human rat? Rats are much more common in lab experiments than guinea pigs.

I’m shocked - I can’t find anyone previously asking this question on the board nor Cecil answering it. Surely I’m not the first to wonder?

[Thudlow_Boink]

I’d guess because “rat” has so many other connotations as well.

[jimpatro]

When I was a “test subject” we called ourselves “lab rats.”

[Loopus]

Cecil addressed the subject in this column: Are guinea pigs ever used as guinea pigs?

Still, you have to wonder how guinea pigs became the proverbial test animal when they’re seldom used for that purpose. The earliest citation in the Oxford English Dictionary for guinea pig in the sense of experimental subject is from George Bernard Shaw in 1913: “The folly . . . which sees in the child nothing more than the vivisector sees in a guinea pig: something to experiment on.” Animal experiments in Shaw’s day were much less sophisticated than they are now, and one supposes guinea pigs comprised a larger portion of the experimental animal population. Or possibly Shaw just thought “guinea pig” sounded more genteel than “lab rat.”

[liirogue]

Thanks Loopus, I must have skipped right over that!

[Mirror_Image_egamI_rorriM]

In China, the idiom for test subjects is “white mice.”

[Bytegeist]

@Mirror Image egamI rorriM

In China, the idiom for test subjects is “white mice.”

Damn! What did I just order with my Mu Shu Chicken??