Saturday, March 20, 2021

Not my circus, not my monkeys

 --- Polish proverb "Nie mój cyrk, nie moje małpy," according to the Polish and Proud blog, April 2019

From the blog:

In short, it could be translated as having the same meaning of "I mind my own business" or "it’s none of my business", but in a broader sense, it’s usually used to enhance the fact that you are not the one to judge someone else’s actions, even when you don’t necessarily agree with them. As if the mess someone else has found himself in, is not your mess to worry about, and the people taking part in that mess are not the ones you can control. 

The research shows that this proverb is not actually an old one. This is interesting because most used usually have a long history and a meaning behind them. It is noted by Henryk Markiewicz and Andrzej Romanowski in Skrzydlate słowa: wielki słownik cytatów polskich i obcych from 2005, that the proverb has been first used in 1993, when Ireneusz Sekula commented the governing of Hanna Suchocka.