It’s a very common word if you read any history.
It’s even in Aladdin’s theme song, Prince Ali.
I’m telling you, it’s a world-class menagerie
2 Likes
Speaking of which, by the way: ‘menagerie’ does come from French, as do many ‘fancy’ words. That Norman Conquest and all, I guess… 
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/menagerie
I’ll leave this as a useful reference for other second-language speakers who might be interested.
I doubt you’d learn good English that way, if you ask me.
‘Any’, yeah. 
PS And if you look at any decent dictionary that shows how frequently a word is used (like Collins, for instance — see the link above), your statement about a ‘common’ word would probably be easy to refute. Collins in particular lists its being used ‘occasionally’ (once again, see the article for details).
Yeah, like it’s something everyone should know.
2 Likes
Not everyone, but it’s a pretty common word.
Lots of parks and gardens are called menagerie. A menagerie is not a zoo, it’s a park or garden with exotic animals.
Both the US and Europe have them, and they have menagerie in their name, like the Ménagerie du Jardin des plantes in Paris, it’s the most famous botanical garden in France. Central Park Zoo in New York is technically a menagerie and that’s what it was called. It’s not like menagerie is some obscure word.
1 Like
We could afford cable TV. Not private British tutors working in the Caribbean.
1 Like
This right here.
Also, from the scrapped pilot episode of Star Trek that didnt even have a Captain Kirk but instead featured Captain Pike. later to be turned into a two parter episode using much of the original pilot’s footage as a form of flashback/exposition/ testimony. Titled “The Menagerie Parts 1 and 2.” In reference to the Telosians keeping the 2 main humans in their private sentient species zoo. Fun side fact this is the origin of not only Pike but also the Orion species.
But I want to say at least when I was in 9th grade for the play and again around freshman year of college for the trek encounter of the term.
Oh and also my town used to have a costume store open year round prior to covid times. Named Marsha’s Menagerie. I miss it, was the only place to rent a last minute Times Square quality pop culture IP character costume like Donald Duck or Iron Man, Big Bird, etc. They closed up before I could return my last rental. SO I still have a Space Ghost costume lol.
If you dont know the songs to Aladdin you deserve the huge amounts making fun of you coming your way lol. Like its got to be one of the first musicals people are shown if you are under 40. I am frequently finding myself with parts of that film echoing as an earworm all day long. ANd I havent seen or heard the actual film or its music in almost a decade.
“… You’re my only friend,ABU!
Oh its that Aladdin, he’s a one man rise in crime…”
2 Likes
I’m French, so learned the word at a pretty young age, can remember exactly when though. You just pick up on language while growing up.
2 Likes
I only learned about the word NOW.
I always assumed that menagerie was just the English variation of manege, a place where animals are kept for all sorts of purposes, in effect it mostly boils down to being a riding school.
I learned about the word manege (french) when I was about 6 years old. In NL we don’t have our own word for it and use the french word instead. My sister was learning to ride a pony, but fell off and we never went back.
2 Likes
Curse of the azure bonds.
1 Like
I learned it, though surely had heard it used before, when upgrading my battle pet menagerie area in WoW, circa WoD.
1 Like
I learned it when I learned my first language (not English). It seems it has come to it from French. But is used primarily similar to the English “It is a zoo here” ( a situation is noisy and uncontrolled).
Learned that it exists in English today.
1 Like
Yup, this is where I heard it first. It’s not a word you hear in English much in America, if ever. Ever since this, I use it as the name of all my Zoo builds in stuff like Zoo Tycoon or Planet Zoo.
1 Like
Prince Ali! Fabulous he, Ali Ababwa
Genuflect, show some respect
Down on one knee!
Now, try your best to stay calm
Brush up your Sunday salaam
Then come and meet his spectacular coterie
….
Has he got a zoo? I’m telling you, it’s the worlds first menagerie
1 Like
WoW, Karazhan, 2006, The Curator boss.
2 Likes
This one, in my case, when it first came out.
1 Like
Very little, Apart from the the more recent usages, in daily English people will say bird cage for 2 birds even if they are different species, and kennel for dogs, and you dropped your cat of at the cattery when you went on holiday.
For a collection of different birds in a zoo? perhaps in my teens and yea curator yells it.
In terms of the most common usage, talking about Bg’s
Country Kiwi as my first language.
1 Like
I learned it from school because I paid attention! Just kidding, both of those are lies.
2 Likes
My understanding was that it is a general collection of many vastly different things. Not really meant to describe a large collection of similar if even different things. So birds in a cage, cats and dogs at a kennel, humans at a hotel, wouldnt be what I understood to be a menagerie. A zoo, which contains many vastly different species, Noah’s Ark as seen in pop culture illustrations, a Cornucopia Assembly line, Fruit of the Loom Logo Designs, and of course what the Telosians had, a large collection of different sentient species across the galaxy. But if you want to tell me your collection of Different Sets of Magic The Gathering Cards in plastic sleeves and encased in resin and framed and mounted to hang on the wall is a menagerie, you are about to play 52 pick up lol. Cuz that aint. lol.
1 Like
Well I was using the usage as I first understood it. We did not have the internet in 1980ish.
But 1. a collection of wild animals kept in [captivity]
- a strange or diverse collection of people or things.
"some other specimen in the television menagerie
my understanding was just a collection of things, practically if your talking about living things they tend to not group wildly different species because they eat one another. I have a very vague recollection it was used in the context of a massive bird cage.
Dont be surprised if your menagerie of lions and lambs becomes a collection of lions.
I missed the part where anyone asked for the elitist European opinion.
1 Like
A menagerie wouldnt be a single cage with a variety of species in it. that’s just a cage. lol. Or a cell. Even if you have a large variety of wrestlers fighting in a Cage Match, that isnt a menagerie either, as they are all humans, all wrestlers, despite all the variety of shapes sizes genders gimmicks costumes. the thing that makes it a menagerie would be both the vast variety of things collected, not just in kind but also in type, and the 2nd would be internal seperations to keep the collection safe from each other and easily viewed and catalogued. Like a zoo, or the food in your fridge. Your milk is at no risk of spilling all over the leftover pizza as it is in a sealed container, much how a zoo would have the lions in a separate area from the lambs.
lol. I dont know how zoos work or fridges work where you grew up but open door policy without any walls or containers sounds like they wouldnt lol.
1 Like