I noticed in this other thread that people were giving **Curious George ** as a response to the question “name a famous George”.
And today at lunchtime I overheard two people (Canadians or Americans I’d say by their accents) in a café referring to Curious George too.
I’ve never heard the phrase before.
Series of children’s books about a mischievious young chimpanzee and his keeper, the Man in the Yellow Hat.
It is a children’s story (actually a series of children’s books) about a very curious monkey and the mischeif he gets into. They have been around for decades and are still going strong in the U.S.
It’s also a new movie in the US, so it’s on the minds of a lot of people.
Robin
As mentioned an old series of children books.
On a sad note one of the Co-Creators Alan Shalleck was found dead outside his home, and police were treating the death as a possible homicide.
There is a movie do out soon.
Jim
Many Americans have compared our president to Curious George, and Dick Cheney to The Man in the Yellow Hat.
Somehow your post reminds me that there’s an old movie I am Curious Yellow and I wonder what the connection might be.
On “The Simpsons”, Mr. Burns’ favorite knife-fighting monkey is Furious George.
Now you know why.
Hmm. In your link, Curious George is referred to both as a chimp and as a monkey, though technically these are two different things. Does anyone have the straight dope on exactly what kind of critter George is?
You don’t really want to know about Bicurious George…
He could be a Barbary ape. They’re monkeys but don’t have tails.
The books always refer to the character as a “monkey” so…
Scientists have rigid definitions for words such as “monkey” and “ape,” but that doesn’t mean everyone does.
So, a monkey is especially, but not necessarily, a smaller, longer-tailed primate. It can refer to any nonhuman primate mammal.
For the same reason that I don’t get worked up when someone calls an eggplant a vegetable I don’t get worked up when someone calls a chimp a monkey.
Daniel
Just curious, I know the Tomato is classified a fruit and the Eggplant is the same family (nightshade), so I assume that is a fruit. Is the pepper also a fruit?
Jim
Doesn’t the rigid scientific definition of “monkey” include the apes, though? That is to say, any common ancestor of all monkeys is also an ancestor of all apes (including us).
And in what possible sense is an eggplant or a tomato not a vegetable? Both are of plant origin, both are edible plant parts, and both are more likely to be eaten in the main course than in dessert. Is there some other definition of vegetable?
Some folks, in an attempt to be clever, will insist that the tomato is a fruit and not a vegetable. I like to point them toward all the other vegetables that are not, by their weird defintion, vegetables, including pretty much all vegetables besides celery, tubers, and green leafy ones.
Daniel
Yes, it is. It isn’t a matter of the family (potatoes also belong to the nightshade family, but a potato isn’t a fruit), but rather that eggplants, tomatoes, and peppers are all the matured reproductive part of a seed plant. Note that “fruit” has a strict botanical definition, but “vegetable” does not, and the two categories aren’t mutually exclusive. The eggplnt, for example, is clearly both fruit (botanical sense) and vegetable (culinary sense).
