Monkey see, monkey do is a pidgin-style saying that originated in Jamaica in the early 18th century and was already called an "old saying" in 1900. [1]
Monkey see, monkey do is a pidgin-style saying that originated in Jamaica in the early 18th century and was already called an "old saying" in 1900. [1]
The saying refers to learning a process without understanding why it works. Another definition implies the act of imitation, usually with limited knowledge and/or concern for the consequences.
Versions of the saying that appeared in U.S. commercial advertisements for shoes and other apparel in the 1890s suggested it was popularly established by then, [2] and an article in Sharpe's London Magazine half a century earlier had pointed to the monkeys' habit of mimicry: "Whatever [a monkey] sees men do, he must affect to do the like himself." [3]
The West African folk tale of a peddler whose wares are ransacked by monkeys that proceed to imitate his gestures of outrage has been retold by Esphyr Slobodkina in Caps for Sale (A Tale of a Peddler, Some Monkeys and Their Monkey Business) and by Baba Wagué Diakité in The Hatseller and the Monkeys. Diakité notes that versions of his tale also are found in Egypt, Sudan, India, and England, and indeed have existed in Europe since the Middle Ages. [3]
Jazz singer-songwriter Michael Franks used the saying as the subject and title of his song "Monkey See – Monkey Do" on his 1976 album "The Art of Tea". A television show of the same name aired on PBS Kids Sprout from 2010 to 2013 and later on Qubo and was produced by Title Entertainment and Smartoonz, the company also behind Sprout's Nina's Little Fables. [4]
In 2016, Scottish writer-comedian Richard Gadd titled his award-winning Edinburgh Fringe show, Monkey See, Monkey Do about being a male victim of sexual assault. [5]
The phrase is also doubly pastiched in the 1968 film Planet of the Apes , when the monkeys implicitly imitate human use of the phrase, when inverting it into "Human see, human do".[ citation needed ]
Onomatopoeia is a type of word, or the process of creating a word, that phonetically imitates, resembles, or suggests the sound that it describes. Common onomatopoeias include animal noises such as oink, meow, roar, and chirp. Onomatopoeia can differ by language: it conforms to some extent to the broader linguistic system. Hence, the sound of a clock may be expressed variously across languages: thus as tick tock in English, tic tac in Spanish and Italian, dī dā in Mandarin, kachi kachi in Japanese, or ṭik-ṭik in Hindi, Urdu and Bengali.
Observational learning is learning that occurs through observing the behavior of others. It is a form of social learning which takes various forms, based on various processes. In humans, this form of learning seems to not need reinforcement to occur, but instead, requires a social model such as a parent, sibling, friend, or teacher with surroundings. Particularly in childhood, a model is someone of authority or higher status in an environment. In animals, observational learning is often based on classical conditioning, in which an instinctive behavior is elicited by observing the behavior of another, but other processes may be involved as well.
In linguistics, a calque or loan translation is a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal word-for-word or root-for-root translation. When used as a verb, “to calque” means to borrow a word or phrase from another language while translating its components, so as to create a new lexeme in the target language. For instance, the English word skyscraper has been calqued in dozens of other languages, combining words for "sky" and "scrape" in each language, as for example Wolkenkratzer in German, arranha-céu in Portuguese and gökdelen in Turkish.
The phrase "What would Jesus do?", often abbreviated to WWJD, became popular particularly in the United States in the early 1900s after the widely read book In His Steps: What Would Jesus Do? by Charles Sheldon. The phrase had a resurgence in the 1990s as a personal motto for adherents of Christianity, who used it as a reminder of their belief in a moral imperative to act in a manner demonstrating the love of Jesus through their actions. The resurgence of the motto during the 1990s stems from the W.W.J.D. abbreviation on wristbands that became popular among Christian youth groups.
Mimesis is a term used in literary criticism and philosophy that carries a wide range of meanings, including imitatio, imitation, nonsensuous similarity, receptivity, representation, mimicry, the act of expression, the act of resembling, and the presentation of the self.
Imitation is a behavior whereby an individual observes and replicates another's behavior. Imitation is also a form of that leads to the "development of traditions, and ultimately our culture. It allows for the transfer of information between individuals and down generations without the need for genetic inheritance." The word imitation can be applied in many contexts, ranging from animal training to politics. The term generally refers to conscious behavior; subconscious imitation is termed mirroring.
A peddler or pedlar is a door-to-door and/or travelling vendor of goods. In 19th-century America the word "drummer" was often used to refer to a peddler or traveling salesman; as exemplified in the popular play Sam'l of Posen; or, The Commercial Drummer by George H. Jessop.
The Rachel Maddow Show was a weekday radio show on the Air America Radio network hosted by Rachel Maddow. The show featured news items read by Maddow and her commentary on each of them as well as interview segments with politicians, newsmakers and pundits. Guests included presidential candidate John Edwards, author Eric Alterman, reporters from The Nation magazine and commentators from The Center for American Progress. Beginning September 8, 2008, she also debuted a TV version of the show on MSNBC of the same name with different content. Early in 2009 the show was moved to the 5AM timeslot and consisted almost entirely of the audio from the previous nights MSNBC broadcast of Maddow's television show. On January 21, 2010, Air America Radio ceased programming citing economic difficulties.
The Monkey and the Cat is best known as a fable adapted by Jean de La Fontaine under the title Le Singe et le Chat that appeared in the second collection of his Fables in 1679 (IX.17). It is the source of popular idioms in both English and French, with the general meaning of being the dupe of another.
In Christian theology, the imitation of Christ is the practice of following the example of Jesus. In Eastern Christianity, the term life in Christ is sometimes used for the same concept.
Matthew Helders is an English drummer, vocalist and songwriter. He is best known as a founding member and the drummer of indie rock band Arctic Monkeys, with whom he has recorded seven studio albums.
Animal culture can be defined as the ability of non-human animals to learn and transmit behaviors through processes of social or cultural learning. Culture is increasingly seen as a process, involving the social transmittance of behavior among peers and between generations. It can involve the transmission of novel behaviors or regional variations that are independent of genetic or ecological factors.
Caps for Sale is a children's picture book, written and illustrated by Esphyr Slobodkina and published by W. R. Scott in 1940.
Panic was a bi-monthly humor comic that was published by Bill Gaines' EC Comics line during the mid-1950s as a companion to Harvey Kurtzman's Mad, which was being heavily imitated by other comic publishers.
"All that glitters is not gold" is an aphorism stating that not everything that looks precious or true turns out to be so.
A parody is a creative work designed to imitate, comment on, and/or mock its subject by means of satirical or ironic imitation. Often its subject is an original work or some aspect of it, but a parody can also be about a real-life person, event, or movement. Literary scholar Professor Simon Dentith defines parody as "any cultural practice which provides a relatively polemical allusive imitation of another cultural production or practice". The literary theorist Linda Hutcheon said "parody ... is imitation, not always at the expense of the parodied text." Parody may be found in art or culture, including literature, music, theater, television and film, animation, and gaming. Some parody is practiced in theater.
A talking animal or speaking animal is any non-human animal that can produce sounds or gestures resembling those of a human language. Several species or groups of animals have developed forms of communication which superficially resemble verbal language, however, these usually are not considered a language because they lack one or more of the defining characteristics, e.g. grammar, syntax, recursion, and displacement. Researchers have been successful in teaching some animals to make gestures similar to sign language, although whether this should be considered a language has been disputed.
The Turing test, originally called the imitation game by Alan Turing in 1950, is a test of a machine's ability to exhibit intelligent behaviour equivalent to, or indistinguishable from, that of a human. Turing proposed that a human evaluator would judge natural language conversations between a human and a machine designed to generate human-like responses. The evaluator would be aware that one of the two partners in conversation was a machine, and all participants would be separated from one another. The conversation would be limited to a text-only channel, such as a computer keyboard and screen, so the result would not depend on the machine's ability to render words as speech. If the evaluator could not reliably tell the machine from the human, the machine would be said to have passed the test. The test results would not depend on the machine's ability to give correct answers to questions, only on how closely its answers resembled those a human would give. Since the Turing test is a test of indistinguishability in performance capacity, the verbal version generalizes naturally to all of human performance capacity, verbal as well as nonverbal (robotic).
The Japanese macaque, characterized by brown-grey fur, a red face and buttocks, and a short tail, inhabits all of the islands in the Japanese archipelago except northernmost Hokkaido. Throughout most of Japanese history, monkeys were a familiar animal seen in fields and villages, but with habitat lost through urbanization of modern Japan, they are presently limited to mountainous regions. Monkeys are a historically prominent feature in the religion, folklore, and art of Japan, as well as in Japanese proverbs and idiomatic expressions.
Birdsong has played a role in Western classical music since at least the 14th century, when composers such as Jean Vaillant quoted birdsong in some of their compositions. Among the birds whose song is most often used in music are the nightingale and the cuckoo.