ape

   In modern American usage ‘you big ape’ would normally be applied playfully to a muscular, but perhaps clumsy, man. According to A Dictionary of American Slang, by Robert Chapman, it can also mean a black person. It has perhaps that meaning in Gone With The Wind, by Margaret Mitchell, where one black servant calls another ‘you pious black ape’.

   Shakespeare uses ‘ape’ vocatively to mean ‘foolish person’, as in Henry the Fourth Part One (2:iii) where Lady Percy asks her husband ‘What is it carries you away?’ ‘Why, my horse, my love, my horse,’ replies Hotspur. ‘Out, you mad-headed ape, says the irritated lady. In Henry the Fourth Part Two (2:iv) Doll Tearsheet says to Falstaff: ‘Ah, you sweet little rogue, you! Alas, poor ape, how thou sweat’st! Come, let me wipe thy face. Come on, you whoreson chops. Ah, rogue! i’ faith, I love thee.’ Doll is adept at using insults, as she shows elsewhere, but here she clearly converts them to covert endearments. A Salute to the Great McCarthy, by Barry Oakley, has ‘you great ape’ used by an Australian girl to a young man who is of impressive physique, a professional football player.