>>>SET RANT ON
>>>
>>>Is it ALL the popn. of the USA or just the (predominantly comedy) scriptwriters who don't know that chimps are APES and NOT MONKEYS? The number of shows where chimps are called monkeys, repeatedly, without anyone correcting the asserter, is REALLY p|ssing me off. Just this morning, watching "Just Shoot Me" over breakfast, I heard it again (and again), and cracked. I just HAD to say something to get it off my chest.
>>>
>>>SET RANT OFF
>>
>>I think you should seriously canvas your Prime Minister to immediately break off all relations with such a cretin infested country.
>
>You have to remember. To a pedant these things can cause deep lasting pain. I believe Dragan may be suffering as well.
Immune. In Serbian, there is one single word to describe both simian groups. I actually have to remember which are which (apes have no tails, right?).
Similarly, we don't distinguish (literally: we don't make a difference between) frogs and toads; beakers, tumblers, glasses, and what other vessels from which one drinks about 1-2dl of something are there; ratchet and wrench; and few other things which all have one word for the whole group.
OTOH, in some cases we have the same number of words but the borders between them are in different places: cap-hat-helmet, for example. Hat is whatever has a rim all around. Cap is whatever has no rim or just in front. Helmet is whatever is hard - including your hard hat, or the headpiece of an aqualung. Another is shoes-sneakers-slippers: sneakers are not shoes, period, slippers are not shoes. And let's not get started on what's a fruit and what's a vegetable, that would be as if someone asked two Englishmen what's the proper way to make tea, and then sat back and enjoyed watching the fight.
On yet another hand (sure takes more than two hands to get hold of all this :) there are notions where we do have multiple words for one English - and not only on what I keep collecting (words that are completely absent in English, or where the ideas don't have a word of their own, but rather live as in a sub-lease as 2nd, 4th or 7th meanings of other words. I mean the cases when we make a distinction between kinds of things where you see only one. For instance cherries and cherries (sweet and sour - separate species, actually), understand (1. to comprehend, 2. to go without saying, 3. to come to a mutual agreement as to what the other meant, 4. to have one's own interpretation of a matter); take off - not only we do have different verbs for starting a flight (applies to birds as well) and dressing/undressing, but there are separate pairs of verbs for various groups of garments - obuti se / izuti se for footware, nataci/smaci for headgear and gloves, obuci/svuci for the rest. Batteries are active elements which produce electricity; those that you have to charge we call accumulators. Keyboard on a musical instrument is "klavijatura" (klavir - piano); keyboard to type on is "tastatura" - from "taster", the touch switch. Screen on which you show something is ecran (after the French word), but the one you use for printing is a sieve. Etc etc.
We also distingush morning and morning - the first is until around 8:00, the other is "prepodne" - forenoon, symmetrical to afternoon.
IOW, while having all of this to keep in mind while speaking, I really can't organize an uprising on behalf of chimpanzees. They have to address a different address.
