Team Saucebox Headquarters: More monkeys

Everyone has something to say about monkeys, as it turns out. Tom reminded me of this passage from William Hogarth:

"A monkey too whose figure, as well as most of his actions, so oddly resembles the human, is also very comical; and he becomes more so when a coat is put on him, as he then becomes a greater burlesque on the man. There is something extremely odd and comical in the rough shock dog. The ideas here connected are the inelegant and inanimate figure of a thrum mop, or muff, and that of a sensible, friendly animal; which is as much a burlesque of the dog, as the monkey when his coat is on, is of the man."

Which was much catchier in Tom's paraphrase, which went something like: "A monkey is fundamentally comical, but even more so when he has a coat on."

Tom also pointed me to this very fun thing to do on the internet:

adopt your own virtual pet!

See what you can make the monkey do!

But back to clothed monkeys: a person who preferred that her name be withheld (to avoid risk to her scientific credentials) thought the tail rule to distinguish monkeys (tails) from apes (no tails) was generally a good one. However, this rule only works if you can remember whether the animal in question has a tail or not. Neither of us could, for example, get a good mental picture of a chimpanzee's behind and therefore couldn't say what kind of primate it was. Fortunately, we remembered that chimpanzees are often made to wear pants, and this wouldn't be feasible were they monkeys, with tails. Ergo, chimpanzees are not monkeys because they can wear pants.

Not that I support the wearing of human clothing by nonhumans, for the record. It's just a useful mnemonic...should you ever find it useful to remember whether or not a chimp is a monkey.

I will leave you with some images from Hogarth, because they're so delightful. First, a monkey (in a coat, and no pants, naturally).