"Cheese-eating surrender monkeys", sometimes shortened to "surrender monkeys", is a derogatory description of French people, referring to their cheeses and military history, that was coined in 1995 by Ken Keeler, then-writer for the television series The Simpsons. The phrase has since entered two Oxford quotation dictionaries. After being popularized by National Review journalist Jonah Goldberg, it has frequently been used by journalists and academics. The phrase was particularly used in the run-up to the Iraq War, since France was opposed to military intervention in Iraq.
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Famous quotes containing the words surrender and/or monkeys:
“There is between sleep and us something like a pact, a treaty with no secret clauses, and according to this convention it is agreed that, far from being a dangerous, bewitching force, sleep will become domesticated and serve as an instrument of our power to act. We surrender to sleep, but in the way that the master entrusts himself to the slave who serves him.”
—Maurice Blanchot (b. 1907)
“You know, that stuff about pink elephants, that’s the bunk. It’s little animals. Little tiny turkeys in straw hats. Midget monkeys coming through the keyholes.”
—Billy Wilder (b. 1906)