Monkey see(s), monkey do(es), 1901, 1893

[Neal Whitman]

Thanks; that and a 1920 attestation seem to have been added since the
OED citations quoted in the ADS-L message. For those interested, here it is:

1895 /Philadelphia Inquirer <javascript:void(0)>/ 24 Nov. 6/4   A case
of monkey see---monkey do.

So the "monkey see" and "monkey sees" versions are now pretty much
contemporaneous.

Neal

On 11/19/2013 1:53 PM, Jesse Sheidlower wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jesse Sheidlower <jester at PANIX.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Monkey see(s), monkey do(es), 1901, 1893
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Tue, Nov 19, 2013 at 10:47:08AM -0800, Neal Whitman wrote:
>> Someone on Facebook asked me why the expression is "Monkey see,
>> monkey do" instead of "Monkey sees, monkey does." Doing a bit of
>> research for a possible Visual Thesaurus column, I found  this 2004 ADS-L
>> message dating the expression to 1922:
>> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ADS-L;4qir2A;200403300121080500E
>>
>> I have also found "monkey see, monkey do" from 1901 via Google
>> Books, in an issue of the Seamen's Friend magazine:
> [etc.]
>
> Note that OED has an example from 1895.
>
> Jesse Sheidlower
>
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