Cold Enough to Freeze the Balls Off a Brass Monkey

It's cold out today. Winter jacket cold. The expression Cold Enough to Freeze the Balls off a Brass Monkey has been heard a few times today. My usual comeback is no that happens at minus 40. Which gets me some weird looks. The reason is there really such a thing as brass monkey that can have it's balls froze off. Only for most it is lost in the sands of time.

In the days of wooden sailing ships and pirates cannon fired iron balls propelled by gunpowder. Beside the cannons the balls were stacked for easy access. What they were stacked in was much like the triangle snooker balls are racked up in today. That triangle was made of brass and the balls were stacked in it. As anyone who has ever used a thermostat knows different metals expand and contract at different rates with temperature change. Brass faster than Iron cannonballs. At minus 40 the monkey would shrink to the point where the balls would be pushed out and the crew would have to chase them all over a rolling deck to try fruitlessly to stack them back again.

So there you have it an expression you hear every cold day in Canada but almost no one knows the meaning of. Like another common expression there is more than one way to skin a cat. It was used in an English class I was in once and someone comment ted it was cruel to animals. I of course piped up it had nothing to with pussy cats and had to explain where the expression came from. Anyone interested in knowing that one?