| Question Home |
Position:Home>History> Can some one tell me the history of the term " colder then a brass monkey&qQuestion: Can some one tell me the history of the term " colder then a brass monkey"!? I was told a brass monkey is or was a brass ring used to hold a stack of cannon balls in place, on board wooden vessels!. and at a certain temperature the ring would shrink to a degree that would cause the cannon balls to fall lose and roll all over the deck causing a difficulty!.Www@QuestionHome@Com
Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: brass monkey - British slang for very cold weather, short for "colder than a brass monkey's tit!." (ED!. Hmmm!. And here I thought it was "Colder than a witch's tit" and "Colder than the balls on a brass monkey!.") brass monkey Urban dictionary Every sailing ship had to have cannon for protection!. Cannon of the times required round iron cannonballs!. The master wanted to store the cannonballs such that they could be of instant use when needed, yet not roll around the gun deck!. The solution was to stack them up in a square-based pyramid next to the cannon!. The top level of the stack had one ball, the next level down had four, the next had nine, the next had sixteen, and so on!. Four levels would provide a stack of 30 cannonballs!. The only real problem was how to keep the bottom level from sliding out from under the weight of the higher levels!. To do this, they devised a small brass plate ("brass monkey") with one rounded indentation for each cannonball in the bottom layer!. Brass was used because the cannonballs wouldn't rust to the "brass monkey", but would rust to an iron one!. When temperature falls, brass contracts in size faster than iron!. As it got cold on the gun decks, the indentations in the brass monkey would get smaller than the iron cannonballs they were holding!. If the temperature got cold enough, the bottom layer would pop out of the indentations spilling the entire pyramid over the deck!. Thus it was, quite literally, cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey!. Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey!.Www@QuestionHome@Com The usual expression is "cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey!." A number of sources for this expression have been put forward, but none of them have been substantiated!. As for the expression supposedly referring to brass plates on which cannonballs were stacked on ships, that part can be conclusively determined: it is absolutely false!. The only time cannonballs are stacked in pyramids is for war memorials and the like, and in those cases the balls are welded together, or in some other way fastened!. On a ship the cannonballs were stored in wooden racks along the sides of the ship!. These racks were generally known as "shot garlands," at least in the Royal Navy!. Only an idiot would stack cannonballs on the deck of a rolling ship!.Www@QuestionHome@Com The cannon-holder etymology is highly unsubstantiated!. Believe it or not, the phrase has been argued for YEARS!. They really don't know for sure where it came from!. HOWEVER!.!.!.!.!.!.!. !.!.!.!.!.!. a book of 1835 has the phrase shaking like a monkey in frosty weather!. This graphic image may well have been the progenitor of all "cold monkey" phrases!. The earliest recorded example of a cold enough to!.!.!. phrase is cold enough to freeze the whiskers off a brass monkey (1912) followed by cold enough to freeze the tail off a brass monkey (1922)!. It is quite possible that this was progressively coarsened to take its present form of "!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.colder than the balls off a brass monkey!." It IS possible that the word MONKEY was another word altogether that SOUNDED like the word monkey at one time, but no evidence has been presented thus!.Www@QuestionHome@Com Not the exact quote but close enough but the cannon ball rack is where it came fromWww@QuestionHome@Com |