Hi Callie, no "freezing the balls off a brass monkey" means something completely different, it concerns how cold the temp. is. The monkey refered to here is a triangle pan that holds cannonballs in a 3 sided pyramid type fashion, a brass monkey would be the same only instear of an iron tray it would be a fancier brass pan used by say an admiral or on board the flagship taken out as a show piece. The iron cannon balls & the brass mokey being of dissimilar metals would expand & contract at different rates, I believe the brass in very cold weather would contract (I may have this part backwards) much faster than the iron therefore forcing the cannon balls to be squeezed off their tray (monkey). Barry