It was necessary to keep a good supply of cannon balls near the cannon on old war ships.

But how to prevent them from rolling about the deck was the problem. The storage method devised was to stack them as 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 with 16 round indentations, called, for reasons unknown, a Monkey. But if this plate were made of iron, the iron balls would quickly rust to it. The solution to the rusting problem was to make them of brass - hence, 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 balls would come right off the monkey.

Thus, it was quite literally, cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey.

We learn something new every day.   

found that intresting allways wondered were the saying come from, the other one i wondered about is who thought of the saying "oh he/she is going to go ape sh1t" were the hell did somebody of think of that

It's amazing how many of these "wise old sayings" originate from nautical roots. Harkening back to the days when we were such a great seafairing nation.

One of my persional favourites (though not of the sea) is the "two fingered salute" or "V" sign (not as Mr Churchill performed it) ----- which was employed in the days of the Archer to show the enemy that he still had the fingers required to shoot them.  The usual practice when enemy archers were caught was to remove the "bow fingers".

Anyway ---- I will still keep the picture of a small metallic monkey, clutching his vitals on a cold morning in mind -- far more entertaining than a load of balls 

Mr Skrunts wrote on 30. Oct 2009 at 01:58:


Correct, I never knew that either 

Pitchfork wrote on 30. Oct 2009 at 19:28:


I gather from my family researches that the term was in common usage in England in the 11th & 12th Centuries, by the Normans.

Whether they picked it up from the Saxons (who probably nicked it from the Romans) or t'other way about I do not know.

Debs will know ..........

Quote:

but in French it's merde, similar in spanish too, so doubtfull whether the Normans used the 'S' word

See here http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/cold%20enough%20to%20freeze%20the%20balls%20o...

From another site:

Analysis: Clever as all that may be, whoever came up with it doesn't know shit about "shit." According to my dictionary, the word is much older than the 1800s, appearing in its earliest form about 1,000 years ago as the Old English verb scitan. That is confirmed by lexicographer Hugh Rawson in his bawdily edifying book, "Wicked Words" (New York: Crown, 1989), where it is further noted that the expletive is distantly related to words like science, schedule and shield, all of which derive from the Indo-European root skei-, meaning "to cut" or "to split." You get the idea.

For most of its history "shit" was spelled "shite" (and sometimes still is), but the modern, four-letter spelling of the word can be found in texts dating as far back as the mid-1700s. It most certainly did not originate as an acronym used by 19th-century sailors.

Apropos that false premise, Rawson observes that "shit" has long been the subject of naughty wordplay, very often based on made-up acronyms on the order of "Ship High in Transit." For example:

    In the Army, officers who did not go to West Point have been known to disparage the military academy as the South Hudson Institute of Technology.... And if an angelic six-year-old asks, "Would you like to have some Sugar Honey Iced Tea?", the safest course is to pretend that you have suddenly gone stone deaf.

Finally, all these stories are reminiscent of another specimen of folk etymology claiming that the F-word (another good, old-fashioned, all-purpose, four-letter expletive) originated as the acronym of "Fornication Under Consent of the King," or, in another variant, "For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge."

Suffice it to say, it's C.R.A.P.