G
GazTech
I am interested in where the sayings we use day to day are derived.Being as how Winter is well upon us...here is the first...please ask me for definitions of any others you can think of...I will post the answer if I can find it.....Gaz
When it is cold enough to Freeze The Balls Off A Brass Monkey, We really had better wrap up warm.But whoever heard of such a thing ? Old nautical records provide the answer. The guns on 18th -century men-of-war ships needed gun-powder to fire them,and this was stored in a different part of the ship for safety reasons.Young boys,usually orphans,who were small enough to slip through tight spaces,carried this powder along tiny passages and galleys. Because of their agility these lads became known as' powder monkeys' and by association the brass trays used to hold the cannonballs became known as the brass monkeys. These trays had 16 cannonball-sized indentations that would form the base of a cannonball pyramid. Brass was used because the balls would not stick to or rust on brass as they did with iron, but the drawback was that brass contracts much faster in cold weather than iron. This meant on severely cold days the indentations holding the lower level of the cannonballs would contract,spilling the pyramid over the deck, hence the saying 'cold enough to freeze the balls of a brass monkey'
When it is cold enough to Freeze The Balls Off A Brass Monkey, We really had better wrap up warm.But whoever heard of such a thing ? Old nautical records provide the answer. The guns on 18th -century men-of-war ships needed gun-powder to fire them,and this was stored in a different part of the ship for safety reasons.Young boys,usually orphans,who were small enough to slip through tight spaces,carried this powder along tiny passages and galleys. Because of their agility these lads became known as' powder monkeys' and by association the brass trays used to hold the cannonballs became known as the brass monkeys. These trays had 16 cannonball-sized indentations that would form the base of a cannonball pyramid. Brass was used because the balls would not stick to or rust on brass as they did with iron, but the drawback was that brass contracts much faster in cold weather than iron. This meant on severely cold days the indentations holding the lower level of the cannonballs would contract,spilling the pyramid over the deck, hence the saying 'cold enough to freeze the balls of a brass monkey'
