Giving a Monkey's
Posted by Lewis on January 31, 2003
In Reply to: Giving a Monkey's posted by TheFallen on January 30, 2003
: : : : Origin of the phrase "couldn't give a monkey's" ?
: : : : A monkey's what? Is it rhyming slang perhaps?
: : : : Thanks
: : : : Jon
: : : I believe it to be just another case of choosing an animal to illustrate a point - eg 'sick as a parrot', 'dog-tired'. The example is particularly crude, because I've always understood that there's a missing word, indicating that things are so trivial as to be not worth caring about. 'I don't give a monkey's f**k'.
: : I thought it was "a monkey's butt," from the "I don't give a rat's a**" genre.
: The following massively unscientific results from both Google and Googlefight:-
: Don't give a monkey's ass/arse - 5,760 hits
:
Don't give a monkey's uncle - 5,280 hits
: Don't give a monkey's f**k - 3,070
hits
: Don't give a monkey's butt - 2,770 hits
: Don't give a monkey's grin
- 2,650 hits
: Don't give a monkey's toss - 1,180 hits
: Don't give a monkey's
fart - 752 hits
: Don't give a monkey(')s with none of the other suffixed words appearing on the same page - 550 hits
: Just for comparative purposes, I append the following results too:-
: Don't give a toss - 446,000 hits
: Don't give
a rat(')s ass/arse - 67,150 hits
: Don't give a (tinker's) cuss - 56,140 hits
Tinkers'
cuss is probably the oldest followed by monkey's toss, which I think started as
a sailor's expression.
The coarse version - "I don't give a monkey's toss"
(i.e. the ejaculate of a monkey has no value) was sanitised to the other versions
in particular "uncle" and as it was widely understood just "a monkey's" which
is the essence of the phrase. I think MT had currency for a long while, but more
recently the shortened version has been more popular vernacular.
Modern equivalents
being "a flying" as in "flying fuck" or "'kin!" which gets used to avoid offence
- as in 'kin'ell! ("Fucking hell!")
I don't know how best that can be verified, but I do think that monkey's toss followed on in the spirit of tinker's cuss and then became sanitised.
- Giving a Monkey's S. 02/02/03
- Giving a Monkey's S. 02/02/03
- "Flying [F-word]": Vonnegut vs. Steinbeck
R. Berg 02/02/03
- "Flying [F-word]": Vonnegut vs.
Steinbeck S. 02/03/03
- "Flying [F-word]" in Steinbeck
R. Berg 02/03/03
- "Flying [F-word]" in Steinbeck S. 02/04/03
- "Flying [F-word]" in Steinbeck
R. Berg 02/03/03
- "Flying [F-word]": Vonnegut vs.
Steinbeck S. 02/03/03
- "Flying [F-word]": Vonnegut vs. Steinbeck
R. Berg 02/02/03
- Giving a Monkey's S. 02/02/03