# Why don't monkeys live as long as humans?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-monkeys-live-as-long-as-humans/225447>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [January 21, 2004, 11:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-monkeys-live-as-long-as-humans/225447 "2004-01-21T11:55:40Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![Sergio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b77776/32.png) [@Sergio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sergio)\
**Post date:** [January 23, 2004, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-monkeys-live-as-long-as-humans/225447/41 "2004-01-23T18:15:18Z")

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> [@John Mace](#):
>
> One answer would be that we are using English for this conversation and there is no reason to absorb the linguistic ambiguities of other languages into English. But even English isn’t pure on this. Macaques living on Gibralter are referred to as “barbary apes” even though this is technically incorrect. Maybe that derives from the Spanish word, per your postulation.
> 
> But it seems that Portuguese would be even more confusing, since there is a type of monkey called a “macaque”. How do you differentiate between macaques and other types of monkeys in coloquial Portuguese?
> 
> But the real answer is as you guessed-- the scientific convention is to differnetiate between apes and monkeys. And unless it is overly cumbersome to do so, common usage should follow suite. So that if someone says: “Some monkeys have been observed to recognize themselves in the mirror”, that would be an untrue statement. Only apes (of the primates) have been shown to do this.

I don’t argue against the proper use of scientific convention in English. I argue against your post where you seem to say that languages that have no word for “ape” are unscientific.  
The denomination “macaque” as a kind of monkey originated in Portuguese and passed into English trough French (Spanish for monkey is _mono_ ).  
In Portuguese the macaques are called _macacas de Gibraltar_ . So, the generic name in Portuguese turned to a specific one in other languages. The same has occurred with “cobra”, wich means “snake” in Portuguese. A kind of Asian and African snakes where called by the portuguese _cobra capelo_ (snake with a hood), because their necks inflate, taking the appearance of a hood. Other languages have dropped the “capelo” part and called this snakes simply “cobra”.

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**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\
**Post date:** [January 23, 2004, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-monkeys-live-as-long-as-humans/225447/42 "2004-01-23T18:47:30Z")

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> [@Sérgio](#):
>
> I don’t argue against the proper use of scientific convention in English. I argue against your post where you seem to say that languages that have no word for “ape” are unscientific.

I didn’t say that. I said they were opperating “contrary to the scientific convention”. Note that that scientific convention (even as you pointed out) is not dependent on the language of the speaker. This happens a lot in all languages (including English), but doesn’t make those languages “unscientific”.

Thanks for the answers to the other question, BTW.

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