Recently, I got this from a friend:
In the heyday of sailing ships, all war ships and many freighters
carried iron cannons. Those cannon fired round iron cannon balls. It
was necessary to keep a good supply near the cannon. But how to prevent
them from rolling about the deck?
The best storage method devised was a square based pyramid with one
ball on top, resting on four resting on nine which rested on sixteen. Thus, a supply of 30 cannon balls could be stacked in a small area
right next to the cannon. There was only one problem – how to prevent
the bottom layer from sliding/rolling from under the others. The solution was a metal plate called a Monkey with 16 round indentations.
But if this plate was made of iron, the iron balls would quickly rust
to it. The solution to the rusting problem was to make “Brass Monkeys.”
Few landlubbers realize that brass contracts much more and much faster
than iron when chilled. Consequently, when the temperature dropped too
far, the brass indentations would shrink so much that the iron cannon bails would come right off the monkey.
Thus, it was quite literally, “Cold enough to freeze the balls off a
brass monkey!” (And all this time, you thought that was an improper
expression, didn’t you?)
However, it appears that this is an Internet chestnut and has been debunked on snopes.com and other places. I couldn’t find a reference in the SD archives.
So my question is: where did this expression come from? Is it simply the scatological reference that it appears to be or is there an underlying story?
:eek: