Brass Monkey

Subject: Brass Monkey
From: Skipper Jack
Date: 25 Mar 02 - 03:33 PM

I was asked recently whether I knew the origin of "Brass Monkey"

There's the phrase "It's cold enough to freeze the balls of a Brass Monkey!"

Does the phrase have a maritime connection? I'm thinking of Powder Monkeys (the young lads who used to carry the gunpowder to the gun ports on board a Man O' War.

I have no doubt that the infinite knowledge of you Mudcatters will have the answer in a very short space of time.

Subject: RE: Brass Monkey
From: Amos
Date: 25 Mar 02 - 03:34 PM

Lots of earlier threads on the legends about cannonballs and their freezing monkeys. Try doing a search for "Monkey" in the Forum using the filter box.

A

Subject: RE: Brass Monkey
From: GUEST,Terry
Date: 25 Mar 02 - 03:35 PM

Or Click here

Terry

Subject: RE: Brass Monkey
From: GUEST,Bill Kennedy
Date: 25 Mar 02 - 03:57 PM

so many opinions, so little chance of discovering the truth! It more likely than not has nothing to do with the navy, British or otherwise, or cannons or cannonballs, in the Civil war or on ship decks or anything like that. The phrase 'freeze the whiskers off' or 'freeze the tail off of a brass monkey' precede the more vulgar one in most people's minds because they appear in print ('whiskers' - 19th c., 'tail'- 1928). It is just as likely, but not necessarily more likely, that the phrases in print were cleaned up from more vulgar common usage. Brass monkeys were, it seems, all over Victorian homes, and often more decorously cast without the 'naughty bits', so some clever fellow has to wonder what happened to the balls? (just like 'whiskers' which also do not show up on brass versions of the animals) The idea of the Cunard line flag, whose rampant lion was called the Brass Monkey, and Brass Monkey becoming a moniker for the line, might also serve independently, ie, the lion has no 'naughty bits' either, but may have been taken up from the more 'rampant' usage of the term to describe cold weather before any use in connection to the Cunard Line. SO, I would say no one, including me, that answers this post really knows, or can say with any authority where the saying came from. But, balls-less brass monkeys were objects known from Victorian times, and it is an imaginative description.

Subject: RE: Brass Monkey
From: Gareth
Date: 25 Mar 02 - 04:26 PM

There was at least one earlier thread on this subject CLICK 'ERE unless you think it's a heap of balls!

Gareth

Subject: RE: Brass Monkey
From: Mr Red
Date: 26 Mar 02 - 10:20 AM

GUEST,Bill Kennedy
If you worked "for Cunard" you would have worked your balls off too!

Subject: RE: Brass Monkey
From: Skipper Jack
Date: 27 Mar 02 - 06:01 AM

Thank you one and all for your contributions.

Anyone going to Lancaster on the weekend?