Was just talking with a colleague who’s visiting from England, but orginally from S. Africa and asked him “how’s it going?” His response perplexed me greatly:
“You know: steady, steady, catch a monkey.”
I managed to not burst out laughing, and I think got the gist of it. But WTH? The best google could offer is that there’s apparently an abstract painting called Slowly, Slowly, Catch a Monkey.
Anyone know what he’s talking about?
I usually swear by this Dictionary of English Slang to translate any wacky slang, but even that phrase doesn’t show up in it.
The reason you can’t find it is because the original phrase is “Softly softly catchee monkey”. I think it’s pidgin Chinese English, and means tricky problems take time to solve.
Yeah I’ve never heard of it before, so I don’t think it’s South African. It certainly isn’t from Cape Town.
I’ve heard it before, certainly in New Zealand and it think elsewhere (as “softly, softly, catchee monkey”). I have the impression of it being a Brit thing (and thence diffused to EnZed, Oz, and SA). My guess also is that is modelled on pidgin Chinese; it could be from Malaya or Singapore, unless it was simply made up by someone.
I take the meaning to be similar to jjimm’s, but would state it as “You need to work cautiously and patiently to solve difficult problems.”
Back in the 70’s the BBC used part of this phrase (" Softly , Softly" ) as the title of a TV police drama series about a special squad set up to catch certain hardened criminals and solve particular difficult crimes. The title gives you an idea of the methods used. The present day police are now using this same phrase for certain operations ( like drug busts ) that require undercover activity. A case of life imitating art.
Yep, I knowo the phrase (U.K. here) and concur that it is derived from pidgin English.
So funny, another of those phrases I had never thought about - in the sense of realising that it would thoroughly confuse a North American.
Thanks everyone, I knew I came to the right place (as usual.) Now that you mention it, with his thick accent, it’s entierly possible he said “slowly,” not steady. One thing I still don’t get… what does it have to do with pidgin English? I mean, I understand that “no tickee no shirtee” comes from the fact that chinese dry cleaners are not uncommon. But what does monkey catching have to do with china?
Well firstly pidgins and creoles are not only spoken by people whose first language is Chinese, secondly I don’t think the phrase is supposed to be a realistic rendition of a real pidgin phrase.
Anyhow, British colonists who encountered Chinese people in the C19[sup]th[/sup] are likely to have met them throughout SE Asia where there were wild monkeys.
Understood, but several of the responses specifically mentioned pidgin Chinese English.