Meanings
- alternativeAlternative form of the organ grinder, not the monkey.
And really it is the organ-grinder, not the monkey, who should be shot.
1981, New Society: The Social Science Weekly, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 240, column 32 more examples
Every submission stated that the Bill is not needed, yet the Minister has the temerity to come into the House and try to justify it. We wanted to hear from the organ-grinder, not the monkey. We heard today from both of them, and they both had the same message.
1986 June 5, John Banks, “Local Government Amendment Bill (No. 2): Report of Internal Affairs and Local Government Committee”, in Parliamentary Debates (Hansard): Second Session, Forty-first Parliament (House of Representatives), volume 471, Wellington: V. R. Ward, government printer, →OCLC, page 1968The more a minister allowed the details of a bill to reflect compromises between the various interests, the more work could be left to officials. But if a bill were controversial, while civil servants could prepare the ground and clarify the issues, the interests opposed, as Aneurin Bevan put it, expected to see the minister, the organ-grinder, not the monkey.
2005, Christopher Foster, “Laws that Work”, in British Government in Crisis: or The Third English Revolution, Oxford, Oxfordshire; Portland, Or.: Hart Publishing, →ISBN, part 1 (The Old Regime), page 48
Cite this entry
the organ-grinder, not the monkey. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/the%20organ-grinder%2C%20not%20the%20monkey
“the organ-grinder, not the monkey.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/the%20organ-grinder%2C%20not%20the%20monkey. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “the organ-grinder, not the monkey,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/the%20organ-grinder%2C%20not%20the%20monkey.
Source: the organ-grinder, not the monkey on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.