Not My Circus, Not My Monkeys

This is the audio-only version of the episode. For the video version use this link: https://www.spreaker.com/episode/48700225 or select the second file with the number 76.

What is YOUR favorite expression? Use the link below and send in your message (audio-only, video or text-only)
https://www.videoask.com/fwegskglw


Full Transcript:

"not my circus, not my monkeys"

Hello guys, this is Daniel. I am the Vocab Man. And this time we go over a very funny and cool expression. Not my circus, not my monkeys. And it actually came from Poland (originally). But. These days especially in the UK, people are using it in English too. So I had a conversation with Sadie and she is the host of an excellent podcast called Accentricity and it's all about accents and languages. So I recommend you to take a listen. But now let's see what Sadie tells us about her favorite expression.

https://www.accentricity-podcast.com/

Yeah, so my favorite expression, I mean, I've got, I've got loads. But I was thinking about this beforehand and there's a Polish expression that I really like, which is I've heard it being used in English a bit more recently.

So it's I hope I'm pronouncing it right. I'm probably not, but *in Polish* "Nie moj cyrk, nie moje malpy". And it means not my circus, not my monkey. And it came to mean something along the lines of, if there is a big fuss, a big mess, lots of chaos going on but it's nothing to do if you, you want to distance yourself from

it's not your problem. Not my problem, not my problem, not my circus, not my monkey. So in Polish, it's not my circus, not my monkey. And then when I've heard it in English, people usually say, not my circus, not my monkeys, so plural . But I quite like that, especially because I think there's often a lot of focus of the influence that English has on other languages and less so the influence of other languages coming in into English.

And I imagine the fact I've heard this expression a lot in English recently has to do with people from Poland moving to the UK quite a lot. And

kind of that being passed over. Yeah.

So I wanted to share it because of that reason I quite, I quite like it, and I think it's just a great expression as well.

Isn't it?

Yes.

It's very useful. I use it all the time.

Cool. Thank you so much, Sadie.

Thank you so much.

So this was all about the expression, not my circus, not my monkeys. And of course, if you want to listen to the whole interview, which lasts about one hour, so we had an excellent discussion

Then I encourage you to head over to my other podcast, which is called My Fluent Podcast. And why did I like this expression as well. It's because, yeah, it has a funny connotation in a way. And I think that even people. Who. hear it for the very first time will understand.

What it means. Because of the context.

Do you feel like you want to share your favorite expression with us? Then you can hand over to the show notes. Because there you will find a link. Which are going to .

Help you with the recording so that you can send me a voice only recording or video recording. In which you are going to tell us about your favorite expression. But of course you can drop me an email as well at myfluentpodcast@gmail.com.

So that's it for today. I am the Vocab Man and I just wanted to say that if this was too fast for you, of course, you can head over to the show notes because there, there will be the full transcript for you. So thanks for tuning in. And have a good one

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If you want to listen to the whole episode with Sadie Ryan you can head over to my other podcast called My Fluent Podcast

https://www.myfluentpodcast.com/104-accentricity-podcast-with-sadie-ryan/
https://open.spotify.com/show/4ZSpC6NaOOJhttlgpxQsDV?si=a55608aece1e4ce4

In the interview with Sadie we cover topics such as:

- How people react when they hear of Sadie's profession as a linguist/sociolinguist
- The term "Linguist" has more than one meaning
- How Sadie got involved into linguistics
- Speaking with a posh accent
- Remember: Everyone has an accent!
- Schools should teach more the listening skill!
- The best thing Sadie learned about language (Ep. mentioned)
- Sadie's PhD research
- Podcast recommendations (Linguistics)
- Language documentation (a specific branch in linguistics)
- The Podcast Accentricity - Every voice is valid
- Sadie's language journey (Polish/Gaelic)
- Is it easier to learn a language as a linguist?