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Chris -- 2018-04-11
While reading a book I came across mention of a Vervet monkey and cursed again those publishers who entrust proofreading to anyone capable of turning a page without tearing it. Had ‘vervet’ been a meaningful term the consolation of finding an eggcorn would have amply compensated of course; this book, however, was the variety that surely would have been rigorously read so, assailed by sudden doubt, I checked and found that there is no monkey called the Velvet monkey. I had seen references to ‘Velvet monkeys’ but never the ‘Vervet’ variety so had, after all, found an eggcorn and also found that the little I know about monkeys is even littler than I thought. Chastened, I continued reading and when I did encounter a small error the proofreader had missed, my response was far more measured, sympathetic even.
... This was a dead velvet monkey that I alone witnessed. It was so freshly dead that only the ants had found him yet. ...
wherethembogoroam.blogspot.com/ – Cached
Wildlife species like Velvet monkey, Bushbuck, Black and white Columbus, Sitatunga antelope endemic and also have larger horns than the mainland specie. ...
ivorytoursandtravels.com/ – Cached
A stiff breeze kept us comfortably cool despite the strong midday sun, and a family of velvet monkeys provided additional entertainment. ...
mwende-ku-malawi.blogspot.com/ – Cached
... Baboons and Velvet Monkeys can also be seen at the park. The monkeys feed on wild fruits and leaves in the forest but also beg for fruits …
www.jubileeventures.org/.../kenyasummervacation.html – Cached
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Anther good one, warm and fuzzy even. A little poking around showed that the identifying features used to name the Old World monkeys were often based on the colour of their fur, or of other garishly unVictorian body parts. Darwin, for example, in speaking of the vervets, referred to striking variation in “one part of the body, which is confined to the male sex” 1. The vervet proper is now known as Chlorocebus pygerythrus, which translates, delicately, as “red-rumped green monkey”.
The cebus root comes from the Gk kêbos, for a long-tailed monkey. Kêbos has been the root of some interesting folk etymology. A link was made between kêbos and kepos, the Gk word for garden, attributing the name for the monkeys to their florid colour displays 2. The true origins of cebus, kebos and kepos for monkeys are more ancient 3. There may also be some cross-fertilization from the ancient Gk slang use of kepos for “a part of the body which is confined to the female sex” 4.
The word “vervet” has colourful roots as well. It may have arisen by “analogy” (I think that’s the term I’ve seen used on this board) from “grivet”. The ver would be to indicate that the animal is green (vert) rather than grey (gris). The grivet is another Chlorocebus species, that was called alternately griseus and griseo-viridis by 19th-century French naturalists 5.
1 From The descent of man, in a section on male-female differences, p. 451 (link).
2 From a Lancet article from 1840 (link)
3
The later Hindus knew Cepheus, or Kepheus, as Capuja, adopted from Greece; but a linguist (George Hewitt) claims that with their prehistoric ancestors Cepheus represented Kapi, the Ape-God [...]. A word for ‘ape’ is common to Greek kepos and Sanskrit kapi, or kapih, these words also link, with k/mute alteration, with Germanic and Celtic words like Old Norse api, Old English apa, Old High German affo, Welsh epa and Irish apa, ‘ape’. The Greek word kepos, ape, resembles cepheus or kepheos.
(link)
4 Agricultural and horticultural terms used tropically in a venereal sense (link)
5 From Paul Gervais, 1854 (link)
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David Bird wrote
The ver would be to indicate that the animal is green (vert) rather than grey (gris). The grivet is another Chlorocebus species, that was called alternately griseus and griseo-viridis by 19th-century French naturalists 5.
That second Latin name made me wonder whether there wasn’t another version of “vert” hidden in “grivet”—could that name be from “gris”+”vert”? The OED editors also noted the possibility in their article on “grivet,” but would only say that the origin of grivet was unknown.
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Perhaps they are called “vervet monkeys” because they have a lot of verve.
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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