Way back there, someone mentioned 'cold enough to freeze the balls of the brass monkey'. A brass monkey was a brass square upon which steel cannon balls were piled in pyramid fashion. Brass has a higher co-efficient of linear expansion than steel, which simply means that it will expand or contract faster than steel as the temperature changes. If the temperature were low enough the brass would contract to the point where the balls no longer had anything to support them.

One of my fathers favourite expessions to describe something broken 'it's come from together'.

Here's one that I've never figured out: to describe someone drunk as 'three sheets to the wind'. I've heard it as 'fore-sheets to the wind' sheets being the lines that control a ships sails. If the fore-sheets (those that control the foresails) are blowing in the wind the ship would stagger along. Any comments.

Gord