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

[Joel S. Berson]

At 11/19/2013 01:53 PM, Jesse Sheidlower wrote:
>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.

But Neal found "monkey sees, monkey does" from 1893.  (The OED
apparently does not have this form.)

As for "see/do" vs. "sees/does", is it an outmoded subjunctive - "if
monkey see, monkey [will] do"?

Joel

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