OK. I was under the impression that in serious contexts everyone used monophyletic definitions of nearly everything by now, but it looks like “monkey” has retained the traditional meaning because there already is an unambiguous non-unwieldy word “simian” for the monophyletic meaning. I’m editing the grandparent accordingly. So, humans are descended from monkeys but are not themselves monkeys (and they are descended from fish but are not themselves fish, for that matter), but “both monkeys and humans belong to a larger category of creatures called apes” is still wrong (and even if you s/apes/simians/ it’s still irrelevant unless you also say that said category is monophyletic or otherwise carves reality at some relevant joint, both chickens and humans belong to a larger category of creatures called bipeds, yadda yadda yadda).
OK. I was under the impression that in serious contexts everyone used monophyletic definitions of nearly everything by now, but it looks like “monkey” has retained the traditional meaning because there already is an unambiguous non-unwieldy word “simian” for the monophyletic meaning. I’m editing the grandparent accordingly. So, humans are descended from monkeys but are not themselves monkeys (and they are descended from fish but are not themselves fish, for that matter), but “both monkeys and humans belong to a larger category of creatures called apes” is still wrong (and even if you s/apes/simians/ it’s still irrelevant unless you also say that said category is monophyletic or otherwise carves reality at some relevant joint, both chickens and humans belong to a larger category of creatures called bipeds, yadda yadda yadda).