[Sca-cooks] OT OOP balls and brass monkeys

[Decker, Terry D.]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: James Prescott [mailto:prescotj at telusplanet.net]
> Sent: Tuesday, May 15, 2001 1:52 PM
> To: 'SCA Cookslist'
> Subject: [Sca-cooks] OT OOP balls and brass monkeys
>
>
> At 16:51 +0100 2001-05-15, Christina Nevin wrote:
> > 	The saying "it's so cold out there it could freeze the
> balls off a
> > 	brass monkey" came from when they had old cannons like ones
> > 	used in the Civil War. The cannonballs were stacked in a pyramid
> > 	formation, called a brass monkey. When it got extremely cold
> > outside,
> > 	they would crack and break off... Thus the saying.
> >
> > Item # 94,583 Tina's Memory Bank of Useless Information
> > Actually, this has an older, English nautical origin - the
> 'brass monkey'
> > was a brass ring that was placed around a pyramid of cannon
> balls to stop
> > them rolling around the decks. When it got too cold, the
> metal ring would
> > contract (as metal is wont to do in cold), toppling the
> cannon balls off the
> > brass monkey and thus giving rise to the saying.
>
>
> I'm going to raise my little "is this another false folk etymology?"
> flag.
>
> The OED gives no derivation for the phrase.  The earliest OED
> citation featuring balls and brass monkeys is 1937.  In 1928 it
> is tail and brass monkey.  The earliest citation, in 1835, is
> "...like a monkey in frosty weather", no mention of balls or
> other body parts.
>
> There does not seem to be any definition of 'monkey' in the OED to
> correspond to a brass ring [sic] placed around a pyramid of cannon
> balls.  There _is_ a species of cannon called a brass monkey (17th
> C).  Many things nautical are called 'monkey', so if such a brass
> thingy existed it could have been called a monkey.
>
> I've read a lot of Napoleonic era (and earlier and later) nautical
> writing and don't remember any such brass thingy being mentioned.
> Shot was normally stored in the hold, and when action was likely
> was transported to the guns in long bags (canvas or net), and was
> stored in a 'garland' next to the gun.  The garland was built into
> the inside of the hull of the ship between guns, was of wood, and
> often had depressions to hold individual cannon balls.  A bit like
> the plastic egg trays built into some refrigerators.
>
> There is a reference to shot garlands for land batteries as iron
> or wooden stands on which shot are 'piled'.  It is possible that
> such a stand could have been called a monkey, and could have been
> made of brass.  No nautical connection.
>
> Partridge (source of the 1937 citation in the OED) also gives no
> derivation for the 'brass monkey' phrase.
>
> I'm skeptical about cannon balls ever being stacked in pyramids
> except on shore or perhaps for show when at anchor.  Any such
> retaining brass thingy would either be solid with individual
> holes (15 for a triangular pyramid with 5 shot along a side at
> the base), or a simple empty triangle or square.  In this case
> the lowest tier of cannon balls would rest on the deck.
>
> And finally (and to my mind conclusively):
>
> A quick trip to the physics texts shows that the differential
> linear thermal expansions of brass and iron, over a range of
> (say) 80 Celsius degrees (+104 F to -40 F) is about 0.05%.  If
> we have a pyramid one yard on a side, that's a differential
> thermal expansion (contraction) of 0.5 millimetres.  That's
> not enough to topple anything.
>
> Colour me (extremely) skeptical.
>
>
> Thorvald
>
>
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