Ethnicity
editI think the "negro" attribution is needless and more a reflection of an individual opinion formed because of non cosmopolitan experience only. I have seen many people of the same ethnicity and even of the same family call each other as monkey when they are irritated and want to say that the other person is troublesome, unimportant or not serious. So skin colour or enthicity is irrelevant in my opinion.117.198.50.97 12:00, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
- Monkeys can be impudent, hence cheeky monkey. But there are clearly the racist comparisons too. Two different origins. Equinox ◑ 22:40, 23 December 2023 (UTC)
- My gut feeling is that 'monkey' could be used of any wog. --RichardW57 (talk) 14:49, 24 December 2023 (UTC)
Mannequin
editWho connects monkey to mannequin? I can't find any info either at dictionary.reference.com , etymonline.com or m-w.com ? Wakuran 14:58, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
- I don't know. That was done only yesterday by an unregistered user: [1] Equinox ◑ 20:21, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
- Yeah, I know. It looks like a folk etymology. There are no {{fact}}-tags here or something? Wakuran 08:26, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
Missing obsolete military sense?
editJohn Camden Hotten's Slang Dictionary (1873) defines monkey as "the instrument which drives a rocket", in army slang. I am not quite sure what is meant here. I tried searching Google Books but mostly found stuff about old experiments where an actual monkey (animal) was shot somewhere in a rocket. Equinox ◑ 22:41, 23 December 2023 (UTC)