Spamming the same comment I already made: If monkey is to be used as a scientific term instead of just a colloquial one, then apes are necessarily monkeys because everything they’re descended from is a monkey. Without apes included, “monkey” is paraphyletic. Apes and Old World monkeys are more closely related to each other than either are to New World monkeys.
Colloquially, “monkey” is already used to refer to apes all the time, so the linguistic argument is just a matter of preference and either usage is fine.
It’s true that there are still plenty of groups that are paraphyletic because the relationships are still being determined, but the lowest category that includes all tailed monkeys is Simiiformes, which does include apes. To my knowledge, scientists tend to avoid quibbling about the term “monkey” these days, in part because tons of non-scientists use it to refer to apes regularly anyways.
I guess I don’t really agree with that binary, because the language of literally millions of people like the OP already doesn’t actually clash at all with the classification reality. It’s mainly people with outdated knowledge of biology or who insist on there being one true definition of some words that get peeved when apes get called monkeys. The linguistic battle is essentially already lost for a large segment of the population and was arbitrary anyways.
Spamming the same comment I already made: If monkey is to be used as a scientific term instead of just a colloquial one, then apes are necessarily monkeys because everything they’re descended from is a monkey. Without apes included, “monkey” is paraphyletic. Apes and Old World monkeys are more closely related to each other than either are to New World monkeys.
Colloquially, “monkey” is already used to refer to apes all the time, so the linguistic argument is just a matter of preference and either usage is fine.
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It’s true that there are still plenty of groups that are paraphyletic because the relationships are still being determined, but the lowest category that includes all tailed monkeys is Simiiformes, which does include apes. To my knowledge, scientists tend to avoid quibbling about the term “monkey” these days, in part because tons of non-scientists use it to refer to apes regularly anyways.
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I guess I don’t really agree with that binary, because the language of literally millions of people like the OP already doesn’t actually clash at all with the classification reality. It’s mainly people with outdated knowledge of biology or who insist on there being one true definition of some words that get peeved when apes get called monkeys. The linguistic battle is essentially already lost for a large segment of the population and was arbitrary anyways.
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