The Brass Monkey: Myth or Fact?

Oregon Magazine ^ | August 4, 2002 | Larry Leonard

[WaterDragon]

(Our pal, Camber, the old son-of-a-gun, found this one in his email box. It's been circulating on the net. Is it myth?)

In the heyday of sailing ships, all war ships and many freighters carried iron cannons. Those cannon fired round iron balls. It was necessary to keep a good supply near the cannon. But how to keep them from rolling about the deck....?(snip)

Click here to read complete article.

[BenLurkin]

FACT:

Brass Monkey Lyrics
Artist: Beastie Boys
Album: Licensed To Ill


(chorus) Brass Monkey - that funky Monkey
Brass Monkey - junkie
That funky Monkey

Got this dance that's more than real
Drink Brass Monkey - here's how you feel
Put your left leg down - your right leg up
Tilt your head back - let's finish the cup
M.C.A. with the bottle - D. rocks the can
Adrock gets nice with Charlie Chan
We're offered Moet - we don't mind Chivas
Wherever we go with bring the Monkey with us
Adrock drinks three - Mike D. is D.
Double R. foots the bill most definitely
I drink Brass Monkey and I rock well
I got a Castle in Brooklyn - that's where I dwell

(repeat chorus)

{snip}

(repeat chorus)

[BenLurkin]

FACT: How to make a Brass Monkey

1/2 oz rum
1/2 oz vodka
4 oz orange juice

Toss the rum and vodka together and stir gently. Pour in the orange juice, and shake well. Pour over ice in a highball or tall glass

[SunkenCiv]

Drink enough of those in a row, you'll be history. ;')

[FairOpinion]

"I'm just lazy"

===


I don't believe it. I bet you aren't going to be able to resist not pinging for an entire week. It's too late for you, you are already addicted. ;)

[Little Ray]

I've known this one for years... Funny as heck, too!

[razorback-bert]

My mother has a brass monkey, my father brought home from India, but it does nothing, buts sits like a Buddha and the cone of incense is put you know where.

[Drammach]

This may be closer to the truth of the saying..

"As near as the Cap'n can figure, the original saying was 'freeze the TAIL off a brass monkey'.
A brass monkey was a small cannon with a brass barrel mounted on an upper deck.
A monkey tail was an iron handspike used to aim the cannon.
Iron becomes brittle at low temperatures.
So when you're trying to aim this cannon in the roaring 40's you're likely to break the tail off on the brass monkey."

Personal note: These smaller cannon would cool off much quicker than the larger ones, as well.. resulting in more temperature stress on the metal. ( metal fatigue? )
Rapid heating and cooling in cold weather engagements could result in the "tail" of the "brass monkey" cracking or breaking off..

"And before you sea lawyers fire off a broadside at the old Cap'n, the Cap'n wants to point out that the difference between the thermal coefficient of linear expansion of brass and iron is about .000006 inch per degree C..
If you went from boiling to freezing with a yard of each metal you'd only have about 2 hundredths of an inch difference. And it's pretty well documented that the shot was held on deck in shot garlands and wooden racks, not in pyramids.

Source Link

The above source would seem to be the most correct..
Other sources I checked often referenced the "freeze the tail" idiom, as well as other parts..
One source suggested that the saying means exactly what it says, but was later "cleaned up" with use of tail, nose, toes, etc.. but the original saying persisted..
Further, that some innovative "wordologist" invented an explanation that would give the saying "innocent" origins..

Another source I ran across claimed that the "brass monkey" was not a "base plate" onboard, but a portable brass powder keg taken on landings ashore, for small cannon. A replacement for the "powder monkey" that brought gunpowder from the ship's magazine to the cannoneers....
In this explanation, cannon ball were stacked around the "brass monkey" and cold weather would cause the shot to contract and collapse..

Another explanation had the brass base plate, but placed it's use in land warfare, specifically, during the Civil War..
There are almost as many references to the Civil War origins as there are the Naval origins..

Cursory examination of a number of period illustrations of sailing ships shows no such device as described..
It would appear that cannonball were kept below decks or in off-deck storage bins...
Logic demands they be kept below decks as far as possible, used as ballast until such time as they were actually needed in combat..
The decks were swept (and kept) clean of anything that could slide, roll, tumble, etc.. and cannon were lashed down when not actually in use..

[rabidralph]

Here's the rest:

Cause I drink it anytime and anyplace
When it's time to get ill I pour it on my face
Monkey tastes Def when you pour it on ice
Come on y'all it's time to get nice
Coolin' by the lockers getting kind of funky
Me and the crew we're drinking Brass Monkey
This girl walked by she gave me the eye
I reached in the locker grabbed the Spanish Fly
I put it with the Monkey mixed it in the cup
Went over to the girl, "Yo baby, what's up?"
I offered her a sip the girl she gave me lip
It did begin the stuff wore in and now she's on my tip

[repeat chorus]

Step up to the bar put the girl down
She takes a big gulp and slaps it around
Take a sip - you can do it - you get right to it
We had a case in the place and we went right through it
You got a dry Martini thinking you're cool
I'll take your place at the bar I smack you off your stool
I'll down a '40 dog" in a single gulp
And if you got beef you'll get beat to a pulp
Monkey and parties and reelin' and rockin'
Def, def - girls, girls - all y'all jockin'
The song and dance keeping you in a trance
If you don't buy my record I got my advance
I drink it - I think it - I see it - I be it
I love Brass Monkey but I won't give D. it
We got the bottle you got the cup
Come on everybody let's get ffffff

[repeat chorus]

[shibumi]

"In the 70's there was a drink called a Brass Monkey. Those were real, anyway."


AND there was a bar at the corner of Michigan and Wacker in Chicago called the "Brass Monkey" that served them!

[Smokin' Joe]

The light from the vacumn tubes would draw moths in and they would get caught in the relays. My dad worked with computers in those days.

[Xenalyte]

Of course it's real! These guys even wrote a little-known song about it. (They were professionals, being licensed to ill and all, so they could get away with it.)

[Xenalyte]

Nooooo! Now everyone will know how to drink it properly!

[OXENinFLA]

That Funky Monkey.......

[R. Scott]

A three mast sailing ship carried nine yards – three per mast - hence, the whole nine yards.

[R. Scott]

I’ve never seen cannon balls stacked on a ship – too much rock and roll for that, but it does make a nice tale.

[Siegfried]

You guys keep this up and I'll have to tell you about the origins of the phrase "There's more than one way to skin a cat."

(Hint - it has nothing to do with felines)

[Drammach]

More than one way to skin a cat

By coincidence, I used that phrase within the last 48 hours right here on FR..
I pointed out, of course, that if one is experimenting, it would be necessary to have a number of cats on which to practice various techniques..
Otherwise one if forced to choose one way and discard the others..

[Drammach]

There's More Than One Way to Skin a Cat
Thursday, January 27, 2005

An old Jewish man lived alone in the country.
He wanted to dig his potato garden but it was very hard work as the ground was hard.
His only son, Saul, who used to help him, was in prison for Insider Trading and Stock Fraud.
The old man wrote a letter to his son and described his predicament:

Dear Solly:
I am feeling pretty bad because it looks like I won't be able to plant my potato garden this year.
I'm just getting too old to be digging up a garden plot.
If you were here, all my troubles would be over.
I know you would dig the plot for me.
Love, Papa

A few days later the old man received a letter from his son:

Dear Papa:
For heaven's sake Dad, don't dig up that garden, that's where I buried the money &stocks.
Love, Solly.

At 4 am the next morning, a team of FBI agents and local police arrived at the old man's house and dug up the entire garden area without finding any money or stocks.
They apologized to the old man and left.
That same day the old man received another letter from his son:

Dear Papa:
Go ahead and plant the potatoes now.
That's the best I could do under the circumstances.
Love, Your son, Solly."

[Siegfried]

"There's more than one way to skin a cat" comes from Pacific Northwest logging history. A "catskinner" is a term for the guy driving a Caterpillar tractor to skid logs up and down hillsides to the landing area. It's probably derived from the older term "muleskinner."

On those steep and wooded hillsides it sometimes took some ingenuity to hook cables around stumps and rocks to get the logs onto the landing, hence the phrase. I should also mention that cat skinning and other logging jobs in the Northwest were, without exception, some of the most dangerous jobs of the time. Cables snap, logs roll, trees falling and getting hung up or splitting in the middle (barber chairs and widowmakers, etc.)

I never logged, but I did cut lead on a hiking trail construction crew and I saw a few things I'd like to forget. I finally quit that line of work when I saw my step-dad killed after dropping a dead snag down the hill, shutting off his chain saw, and then starting to walk back up the hill. Then I saw the top 20 feet or so of that snag come flying back up the hillside after springing off another tree down below. The top of the snag landed on him and crushed him.

[Squantos]

Keeps strangers from spanking him !