Monkey see, monkey do is a pidgin-style saying that originated in Jamaica in the early 18th century and was already called an "old saying" in 1900.^[1]

The saying refers to learning a process without understanding why it works. Another definition implies the act of imitation, usually with limited knowledge and/or concern for the consequences.

Versions of the saying that appeared in U.S. commercial advertisements for shoes and other apparel in the 1890s suggested it was popularly established by then,^[2] and an article in Sharpe's London Magazine half a century earlier had pointed to the monkeys' habit of mimicry: "Whatever [a monkey] sees men do, he must affect to do the like himself."^[3]

The West African folk tale of a peddler whose wares are ransacked by monkeys that proceed to imitate his gestures of outrage has been retold by Esphyr Slobodkina in Caps for Sale (A Tale of a Peddler, Some Monkeys and Their Monkey Business) and by Baba Wagué Diakité in The Hatseller and the Monkeys. Diakité notes that versions of his tale also are found in Egypt, Sudan, India, and England, and indeed have existed in Europe since the Middle Ages.^[3]

Jazz singer-songwriter Michael Franks used the saying as the subject and title of his song "Monkey See – Monkey Do" on his 1976 album "The Art of Tea". A television show of the same name aired on PBS Kids Sprout from 2010 to 2013 and later on Qubo and was produced by Title Entertainment and Smartoonz, the company also behind Sprout's Nina's Little Fables.^[4]

In 2016, Scottish writer-comedian Richard Gadd titled his award-winning Edinburgh Fringe show, Monkey See, Monkey Do about being a male victim of sexual assault.^[5]

The phrase is also doubly pastiched in the 1968 film Planet of the Apes, when the monkeys implicitly imitate human use of the phrase, when inverting it into "Human see, human do".^{[citation needed]}

In 1994, the (paraphrased) saying was used in a most literal sense when a juvenile spider monkey escaped from its exhibit at the Henson Robinson Zoo in Springfield, Illinois. The monkeys, a non-swimming species believed to be afraid of water, were exhibited in the open air on a small island in the middle of a lagoon, until a 1-year-old monkey unexpectedly jumped into the water and swam to shore. The monkey was quickly recaptured, but zookeepers knew that having seen the juvenile monkey successfully escape the island, the adult monkeys would soon try it themselves. The monkeys were quickly moved to a new exhibit with a cage, where they remain today. ^[6]