My mascot Mr H, a stuffed monkey that I have had for 19 years.Generally, 'a stuffed monkey' means something like this:
Given that Goodall worked with chimps in Africa, it's entirely possible that she has an actual monkey that has been stuffed, perhaps a favourite pet. It wouldn't be a chimp, because as an expert she would not call a chimp a monkey, but still a possibility, no?
This ambiguity is not normally present, because the first meaning is so much more accessible, so this is an example of how context can make a big difference to the salience of a secondary reading.
In case you're curious, it is a toy:
And she made no mention of whether she made the chimps work in a diamond mine, as her fictional counterpart did in the Simpsons.
Goodall not only wouldn't call chimps monkeys, it's inconceivable that she would carry stuffed ones (in the second sense) about. There's a wonderful passage in Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi that comes to mind:
ReplyDeleteOf course, on the great rise [of the Missisippi], down came a swarm of prodigious timber-rafts from the head waters of the Mississippi, coal barges from Pittsburgh, little trading scows from everywhere, and broad-horns from 'Posey County,' Indiana, freighted with 'fruit and furniture' — the usual term for describing it, though in plain English the freight thus aggrandized was hoop-poles and pumpkins. Pilots [of steamboats] bore a mortal hatred to these craft; and it was returned with usury. The law required all such helpless traders to keep a light burning, but it was a law that was often broken. All of a sudden, on a murky night, a light would hop up, right under our bows, almost, and an agonized voice, with the backwoods 'whang' to it, would wail out —
"Whar'n the —— you goin' to! Cain't you see nothin', you dash-dashed aig-suckin', sheep-stealin', one-eyed son of a stuffed monkey!"