Everyone knows the monkey, but the monkey knows no one.

November 3, 2007 2:26 PM

Proverb origins? Everyone knows the monkey, but the monkey knows no one.

It's used in Finnish (Kaikki tuntevat apinan, mutta apina ei tunne ketään). Some claim it originates here, but I have my doubts. I've tried googling various forms in English, but I get few results. Some of those seem to be from Baltic or Russian people. I think I also saw a Swede there. Have you heard it in these or any other languages? How frequently? Do you have knowledge or good guesses of its origins?

posted by Anything to writing & language (6 comments total)

This guy says it's Swedish: "Alla känner apan, apan känner ingen."

What does it mean? In what context would you use it?
posted by Flunkie at 2:31 PM on November 3, 2007

Oh, Estonians too. I somewhat carelessly lumped them in with the Balts, although they're ethnically and linguistically more related to us Finns.
posted by Anything at 2:37 PM on November 3, 2007

I've mostly seen it used in relation to someone making a fool of himself, being shunned, and not understanding what's going on or why.
posted by Anything at 2:41 PM on November 3, 2007

Looking at the results, it seems a vastly more common context is fame in general; getting approached by lots of strangers who know you by name. No particularly bleak connotations.
posted by Anything at 3:30 PM on November 3, 2007

Now I'm hoping it's secretly related to 'Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey'.
posted by eritain at 9:37 PM on November 3, 2007

It sounds like a variant of the English proverb, 'More know Tom Fool than Tom Fool knows'. According to the Oxford Dictionary of English Proverbs, this goes a long way back; the earliest citations are 1656, 'In all Comedies more know the Clown, than the Clown knows', and 1723, 'It was no satisfaction to me that I knew not their faces, for they might know mine .. according to the old English proverb, that more know Tom Fool, than Tom Fool knows'.
posted by verstegan at 2:00 AM on November 4, 2007