/ˈnɒt maɪ ˈsɜːkəs ˈnɒt maɪ ˈmʌŋkiz/
English idiom, colloquial. This isn’t my problem, so I’m not getting involved.
Draft Not yet checked by a native English speaker.
How do people use Not my circus, not my monkeys
?
Colloquial and fairly new in English, popular online and in office talk. People say it, or mutter it to themselves, when someone else’s chaos is unfolding and they’ve decided to stay out of it. The possessive can change (“not our circus, not our monkeys”), and it can come across as dismissive if you say it to the person whose circus it is.
Not my circus, not my monkeys
in real sentences
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Not my circus, not my monkeys.
Tatoeba, sentence by deniko, CC BY 2.0 FR
Where does Not my circus, not my monkeys
come from?
English borrowed it from Polish, where “nie mój cyrk, nie moje małpy” means the same thing, according to English Wiktionary. The oldest English example Wiktionary quotes is from J. J. Johnson’s novel Believarexic (2015), where the narrator repeats it like a mantra. Nobody has documented how or when it crossed into English.
Mistakes learners make with Not my circus, not my monkeys
Turning the monkeys singular: “not my monkey” breaks the rhythm. Both halves keep the same shape, and the monkeys stay plural.
Other English idioms like Not my circus, not my monkeys
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?
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