(urth) Simians

[Andrew Mason]

Jerry Friedman wrote:

.  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.

This may differ a lot between languages. Terry Pratchett has a
character, to whom someone referred obliquely a little while ago, who
is an ape and gets annoyed when people call him a monkey. This proved
very hard to translate into French, because in French the same word
'singe' covers both.

I'm with Jerry - to me they are different kinds of animal. to call an
ape a monkey would be like calling a wolf a dog. (Of course, that
might be appropriate in some contexts; but if I said there was a dog
in the back garden, and it turned out to be a wolf, that would be
deceptive.)