#49917
12/13/2001 2:22 AM
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Joined: Mar 2001
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Carpal Tunnel
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I just got this E-mail from a friend (an artillery re-enacter) today. I'm amazed!!  Lacking computer savvy, however, I couldn't get in to the citations provided: Bet you didn't know... In the heyday of the sailing ship, every ship had to have cannon for protection. Cannon of the times required round iron cannon balls. The master wanted to store the cannon balls such that they could be of instant use when needed, yet not roll around the gun deck. The solution was to stack them 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 16, and so on. Four levels would provide a stack of 30 cannon balls. 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 plate ("monkey") with one rounded indentation for each cannon ball in the bottom layer. When iron was used to make this plate ("monkey"), the cannon balls would rust to the plate. As a result, these plates were made of brass to prevent this problem-- thus the name "brass monkey." When temperature falls, brass contracts in size faster than iron. As it got cold on the gun decks, the indentations in he brass monkey would get smaller than the iron cannon balls 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." And all this time some of you thought we were talking dirty. <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD W3 HTML//EN"> <HEAD> <META content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" http-equiv=Content-Type> <META content='"MSHTML
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#49918
12/13/2001 2:49 AM
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Yup, this is pretty much what Capital Kiwi told us some time back. There was some lack of agreement, but I've forgotten the details.
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#49919
12/13/2001 2:57 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Eear WO'N I agree with Quinion, that no shipmaster in his right mind would stack cannon balls, which would be more dangerous than the proverbial "loose cannon".Incidentally, look at date on Quinion's credit line below: 1998!
BRASS MONKEY WEATHER
From Peter Grace: "Over here in Queensland, it gets pretty cool in the
evenings at this time of the year (though it's probably pretty mild by UK
standards). The other day, I used the expression brass monkey weather
and was asked to explain. Any ideas?"
The full expansion of the phrase is "cold enough to freeze the balls off a
brass monkey" and is extremely common throughout the English-speaking
world, often reduced to the form you give, no doubt in polite company.
The origin is unknown. All I can report is that variants of it were first
recorded in the USA in the early part of this century. There is some
suspicion, because of a citation from 1835, that the phrase may in fact be
at least of this age.
There is a story, often repeated, that the phrase originated in naval warfare
at the time of the Napoleonic wars, if not before. It is said that the stack of
cannon balls alongside each gun, arranged in a pyramid on a brass plate to
save space, was called a monkey. In very cold weather, it is related, the
cannon balls would shrink and balls would fall off the stack.
Though monkey was a term used in this context and era (the boys bringing
charges to the guns from the magazine were known as powder monkeys
and there is some evidence that a type of cannon was called a monkey in
the mid seventeenth century), there is no evidence for the word being
applied to a pile of cannon shot.
The explanation sounds like a story that's been woven around a term
already well known and is full of logical holes: would they pile shot into a
pyramid? (hugely unsafe on a rolling and pitching deck); why a brass plate?
(far too expensive, and unnecessary: they actually used wooden frames
with holes in, called garlands, fixed to the sides of the ship); was the plate
and pile together actually called a monkey? (no evidence, as I say); would
cold weather really cause such shrinkage as to cause balls to fall off?
(highly improbable, as all the balls would reduce in size equally and the
differential movement between the brass plate and the iron balls would be
only a fraction of a millimetre).
Fun story, though.
World Wide Words is copyright © Michael Quinion, 1996-. All rights reserved.
Page created 15 August 1998.
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#49920
12/14/2001 6:14 AM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 866
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Nov 2000
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Gee, I'm confused now - I'd heard a different etymology.....
I understand that attributing this phrase to old English seafarers is on the right track, but a simple twisting of the language has resulted in some deep and long held misinterpretations.
Rather than being a nautical term, the phrase originated in seminaries - and thus the common misconception that it came from seamen. (One must also be very careful not to introduce semen into the discussion either, though this word no doubt fertilised centuries of misunderstanding.)
Anyway, back on the job.......
Apparently with the Church's omnipotent role in society those days, long before banks, it became the task of the friars in the local monastery to provide a safe repository for valuable documents. The demand for this service was highest in the winter months because the houses and buildings back then were damp and draughty. Important documents (nearly always on linen or vellum) were prone to ruination by attack from water, fungus or mould.
Rather than store these items with the day to day items of church paraphenalia and monastic regalia, they were kept in a special room, the key of which was held by the Abbott. The lock on the door to the strongroom was, by necessity, a complicated device requiring a special key - replete with a series of levers and cams. The key was made of an alloy of copper and tin, offering considerable superiority to iron by virtue of its resistance to rusting.
Unfortunately however, right when the demand for the church's repository service was at its highest (ie during the cold winter months), the special key often failed to work correctly. In the worst weather, the complicated add ons were even known to cease functioning altogether.
Hence the phrase, "Cold enough to freeze the pawls of a brass monk's key".
P-)
stales
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#49921
12/14/2001 1:56 PM
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Oh my gawd, stales! You're a pip!
"The louder they groan the better they like 'em"
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#49922
12/14/2001 2:02 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,773
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jan 2001
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Here, wow: you dropped your "m".
[handing-over-letter icon]
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#49923
12/14/2001 8:40 PM
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Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 11,093 Likes: 2
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For another refutation of this charming story, try the Snopes page on myths and urban legends:
http://www.snopes.com/language/stories/brass.htm (this is not markup - cut and paste into your browser)
"Claim: "Brass monkeys" were small brass plates used to hold cannonballs on the decks of sailing ships.
Status: False. "
and goes on from there.
(complete with references!)
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#49924
12/14/2001 10:04 PM
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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Here, wow: you dropped your "m".Sparteye! You bad girl! [snicker] Stales is gonna come over here and slap you silly. [snort] 
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#49925
12/15/2001 10:07 PM
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Posts: 4,189
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"Cold enough to freeze the pawls of a brass monk's key".Thanks for that, stales! My version pawls in comparison! urban mythThanks, wofahulicodoc! The rebuttals are thorough and make a lot of sense. So does anyone have an inkling of the phrase's true entymological origins?...Uncle Tsuwm? help! Or, based on the brass monkey lineage of phraseology offered in this response, perhaps someone coined it who really was just talkin' dirty, after all!
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#49926
12/15/2001 11:24 PM
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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
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well I'll be a monkey's uncle! the phrase is treated by the OED. (why should I be surprised?) it seems that the phrase probably evolved from the simple concept that monkeys don't like cold weather much. and the first thing to freeze off the ol' brass monkey was the tail!
b. Slang phr. cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey: extremely cold. Also in similar and allusive phrases.
[1835 F. Chamier Unfortunate Man I. iv. 117 He was told to be silent, in a tone of voice which set me shaking like a monkey in frosty weather.] 1928 Amer. Speech IV. 123 Cold enough to freeze the tail off a brass monkey. 1937 Partridge Dict. Slang 528/2 Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey. 1972 Evening Telegram (St. John's, Newfoundland) 5 Aug. 3/1 Here's Smallwood still putting up a brass-monkey face right to the bitter end. 1973 Guardian 20 July 9 (headline) Brass monkey weather. Ibid., You ought to buy yourself a brass monkey and then you will know what a freeze is.
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#49927
12/17/2001 12:50 AM
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Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189
Carpal Tunnel
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Intriguing that you came up with that citation, tsuwm! Now I'm curious as to where the brass in the term came in. I'm not aware that brass monkey sculptures were a popular knick-knac at the time of the coinage, and I've never seen said item with any high-profile collectibility in antique stores or journals. And I guess it would, then, have to be a lawn or garden ornament to be subjected to freezing. I'm also equally unaware that brass is an alloy noted for becoming particularly brittle and prone to fragmentation and/or breaking at freezing temperatures. And so, embarking on my merry googling, I encounted this tasty tidbit: The first recorded use of the term "brass monkey" appears to dates to 1857 when it was used in an apparently vulgar context by C.A. Abbey in his book Before the Mast, where on page 108 it says "It would freeze the tail off a brass monkey." [Source: Lighter, J.E. ed. Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang. (New York: Random House, 1994): 262.]
It has often been claimed that the "brass monkey" was a holder or storage rack in which cannon balls (or shot) were stacked on a ship. Supposedly when the "monkey" with its stack of cannon ball became cold, the contraction of iron cannon balls led to the balls falling through or off of the "monkey." This explanation appears to be a legend of the sea without historical justification. In actuality, ready service shot was kept on the gun or spar decks in shot racks (also known as shot garlands in the Royal Navy) which consisted of longitudinal wooden planks with holes bored into them, into which round shot (cannon balls) were inserted for ready use by the gun crew. These shot racks or garlands are discussed in: Longridge, C. Nepean. The Anatomy of Nelson's Ships. (Annapolis MD: Naval Institute Press, 1981): 64. A top view of shot garlands on the upper deck of a ship-of-the-line is depicted in The Visual Dictionary of Ships and Sailing. New York: Dorling Kindersley, 1991): 17.
"Brass monkey" is also the nickname for the Cunard Line's house flag which depicts a gold lion rampant on a red field. [Source: Rogers, John. Origins of Sea Terms. (Mystic CT: Mystic Seaport Museum, 1984): 23.] For the first part of the article which gives an interesting account of all the nautical associations with the term "monkey" here's the url: http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq107.htmDetermined to find the brass in brass monkey...and, now it suddenly occurs to me, could it have something to do with brass balls?
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#49928
12/17/2001 1:08 AM
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Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189
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I think I found it! And, tsuwm..he quotes the Concise QED as the source! Quoting from the site in excerpt: I am near convinced now that if there is any substance to the popular etymology of the expression "cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey" as relating to cannonballs, it has nothing to do with _naval_ gunnery at least.
Upping the ante, however, a friend of mine with similar interests, sent me the following in email, early in 1996, which I don't think I ever got round to forwarding to the group:
I have found out what a Brass Monkey is.
According to the Concise OED, the two volume version with four-pages-in-one printed in micro lettering, it is "a kind of gun or cannon." The usage seems to be archaic. The dictionary cites a 1650 book called Art. Rendition Edinbur. Castle as referring to "28 short brass munkeys alias dogs", and a 1663 (1672) publication called Flagellum, O Cromwell as referring to "Twenty eight brass drakes called Monkeys."
How this relates to 'freeze the balls off a brass monkey' is unclear, but [...] Perhaps it is a reference to the coefficient of expansion, ie; if it was very cold, perhaps the muzzle of the cannon was too small to prevent the iron balls from being loaded (differing coefficients of expansion)? I may be stretching the point a bit, but food for thought anyway.
(private email quoted with permission of the author) Here's the url for the full text: http://www.urbanlegends.com/language/etymology/brass_monkey_more.html
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#49929
12/17/2001 1:12 AM
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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
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all I can say, Whitman, is that to keep swallowing all these monkey stories you must be chalcenterous. [ycliu]
p.s., maybe the fact that brass is normally impervious to freezing is meant to add to the effect of saying how very, very cold it is.
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#49930
12/17/2001 4:12 AM
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Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189
Carpal Tunnel
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all I can say, Whitman, is that to keep swallowing all these monkey stories you must be chalcenterous. [ycliu]Yeah, thanks tsuwm, that'll go great with my steel wool toilet paper! And what do you expect from someone in pursuit of cercopithecan fantasies? ycliu figured I might as well go public with this
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#49931
12/17/2001 4:26 AM
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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ceropithecan fantasiesUm...good riposte, but...you want to become a monkey?? Oh, Dear, I'm afraid I'm going to have to rethink our relationship...  psst--you left out a c
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#49932
12/17/2001 4:47 AM
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Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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cercopithecan fantasiesThat's it, Jackie! No more bananas for you!! pssst-you left out a c, mine was there??
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#49933
12/17/2001 12:44 PM
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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 !
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#49934
12/17/2001 2:07 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,773
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jan 2001
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My monkey went to sea, sea, sea
To see what he could see, see, see
And all that he could see, see, see
Was cercopithecan fantasies, sies, sies.
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#49935
12/17/2001 4:45 PM
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Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,605
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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ah, dear Anna-sparteye is a bonny lass:
My analyze over the ocean,
My analyze over the sea,
My analyze over the ocean,
Oh bring back my anatomy.
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#49936
12/17/2001 5:23 PM
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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My analyze over the ocean,
My analyze over the sea,
My analyze over the ocean,
Oh bring back my anatomy.Oh, that one's good! THREE points!
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#49937
12/17/2001 6:06 PM
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Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 3,467
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Sorry, the freezing caused permanent damage.
TEd
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#49938
12/17/2001 7:48 PM
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Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,605
Carpal Tunnel
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#49939
12/18/2001 5:24 AM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 866
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 866 |
> the fact that brass is normally impervious to freezing...
[hair splitting post] It's brass's coefficient of thermal expansion that's at the root of all this. Its freezing point is around 875 degrees C. [/hair splitting post]
stales
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#49940
12/18/2001 8:07 AM
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Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 2,636
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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875 degrees C
Is it just me, or is it really hot in here?
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#49941
12/18/2001 1:14 PM
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
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no-- that sound right.. remember, "freezing" is going from a liquid state to a solid state. Water does it at 32 F., or 0 c.--- i don't think i have ever seen liquid brass, and even when soldering, a lead solder is used--
what we are concerned with, is some materials, even after they have become solid, expand and contract. steel does it noticable.. since it is very elastic for a metal.. and bridges are "higher" in the winter than they are in the summer.. and bridges all have expansion joints... even little 50 foot long highway overpass bridges..
what i think is being discussed, is brass does not expand or contract in a normal range of tempuatures.. say from -10 C. to 150 C. -- (though normal could be defined in other ways, but from sub zero to 20 lbs of steam is a pretty wide range.. yet one we might encounter in our daily lives (a very cold freezer, to a pressure cooker, or steam radiator.) but a metal lid to a jar will get a bit looser if you hold it under hot tap water...
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#49942
12/18/2001 2:12 PM
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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Check this site: http://cougar.slvhs.slv.k12.ca.us/~pboomer/physicslectures/ch8coefficientexpansion.htmlNote: Brass's coefficient of expansion is 19.3 X 10^-6 and iron's 12.1 X 10^-6. This means that an iron cannonball that is 4" at 10°C is going to measure 3.999032" at -10°C. If it is in a 3" brass hole, that hole will shrink from 3" at 10°C to 2.998842" at -10°C . This is close enough to not shrinking for me.
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#49943
12/18/2001 3:47 PM
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Posts: 2,605
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Enough about brassholes and the expansion and shrinking thereof.
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#49944
12/18/2001 5:39 PM
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Posts: 3,467
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Of course if a 4 inch cannonball is in a 3 inch brass hole it is going to be VERY tight.
TEd
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#49945
12/18/2001 5:48 PM
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Joined: Dec 2000
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very tight
No. It would just sit up a little bit. You're not trying to put the cannonball through the hole. This is how I interpreted the original telling of the brass monkey story. You've got a brass plate with holes big enough for the cannonballs to sit in to keep them from rolling around the deck. Somehow the coefficient of expansion was supposed to make the holes too small (or is it too large?) to adequately prevent the balls from rolling out.
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