Reptiles

Jordon Flato · 07 Jan 2011, 19:34 · from 2011-January.txt.gz

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From: jordonflatourth at gmail.com (Jordon Flato)
Date: Fri, 7 Jan 2011 11:34:41 -0800
Subject: (urth) Reptiles
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But But But...does that mean the man apes of Saltus might have been MAN
MONKEYS!!?!??

On Jan 7, 2011 10:37 AM, "Jerry Friedman" <jerry_friedman at yahoo.com> wrote:

> From: Lee Berman <severiansola at hotmail.com>

>
> >On the other hand he seems to have conflated monkeys and apes in a couple

>spots in his work...
In fact, according to the NSOED, all monkeys were once called "apes"; that
was
the only word in English.  "Monkey" first appeared in the 16th century.

It doesn't give information on when biologists started to tell people to use
"ape" for the tailless ones or specifically for what the gibbons and the
great
apes.  My feeling is that the distinction has taken hold better than most
prescribed distinctions, and the words aren't synonyms--though as you point
out,
people do still refer to chimps as monkeys.  But this is getting off-topic,
so
if Antonio wants to know more about current usage, he can always ask in
alt.usage.english.

So I agree that if Severian calls a big monkey an ape, that's just because
his
society or his part of it isn't concerned with taxonomic precision, as our
ancestors weren't.

Jerry Friedman

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