03-25-2016, 11:59 PM
"Freeze the balls off a brass monkey."
How cold is that? And what the heck does that mean? It's suggestive, but doesn't even conjure up an image. Here is the story.
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During the Civil War, and some other earlier wars I'm sure, cannon balls were stacked next to the canons that would fire them. What kept them in place was a square brass plate with indentations for the lowest layer of balls, kind of like an egg carton. They were then stacked on, pyramid style. It was called, for whatever reason, a "monkey". Brass contracts in cold weather, and if it's cold enough, the "brass monkey" would contract so much the cannon balls would get squeezed off, and go tumbling, "freezing the balls off a brass monkey." So, for those of us who might have had something more fantastical in mind, that you couldn't quite get your head around, now you know . . . the rest . . . of the story.Â
Spanky
How cold is that? And what the heck does that mean? It's suggestive, but doesn't even conjure up an image. Here is the story.
Â
During the Civil War, and some other earlier wars I'm sure, cannon balls were stacked next to the canons that would fire them. What kept them in place was a square brass plate with indentations for the lowest layer of balls, kind of like an egg carton. They were then stacked on, pyramid style. It was called, for whatever reason, a "monkey". Brass contracts in cold weather, and if it's cold enough, the "brass monkey" would contract so much the cannon balls would get squeezed off, and go tumbling, "freezing the balls off a brass monkey." So, for those of us who might have had something more fantastical in mind, that you couldn't quite get your head around, now you know . . . the rest . . . of the story.Â
Spanky