[Khepera]

I wish I could have a little of the cold weather that could freeze the balls off of a brass monkey today. It's too hot .

[Bogey78O]

The Brass Monkey is real! 1980s rap centered around it.

[Bowana]

It has often been claimed that the "brass monkey" was a holder or storage rack in which cannon balls (or shot) were stacked on a ship. Supposedly when the "monkey" with its stack of cannon ball became cold, the contraction of iron cannon balls led to the balls falling through or off of the "monkey." This explanation appears to be a legend of the sea without historical justification. In actuality, ready service shot was kept on the gun or spar decks in shot racks (also known as shot garlands in the Royal Navy) which consisted of longitudinal wooden planks with holes bored into them, into which round shot (cannon balls) were inserted for ready use by the gun crew. These shot racks or garlands are discussed in: Longridge, C. Nepean. The Anatomy of Nelson's Ships. (Annapolis MD: Naval Institute Press, 1981): 64. A top view of shot garlands on the upper deck of a ship-of-the-line is depicted in The Visual Dictionary of Ships and Sailing. New York: Dorling Kindersley, 1991)

From DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY -- NAVAL HISTORICAL CENTER: Brass Monkey

[monkeyshine]

Don't forget about the "whole nine yards".

[realpatriot71]

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[realpatriot71]

[strela]

Brass monkey? Phaghh. In MY day, they were gold ...

[SunkenCiv]

Absotively, posilutely the last GGG ping from me tonight, and possibly for the rest of the week (until the Saturday digest). I'm not taking the week off per se, I'm just lazy, and I'm sure everyone now has plenty to read for the next six days. One last one (although, the first to show up, as I did them in reverse alpha, in order to stack them up alphabetically from top to bottom in your "comments" pages) from the "iron" keyword search, for the "Thoroughly Modern Miscellany" category.

Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on, off, or alter the "Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list --
Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
The GGG Digest -- Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)

[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)

[Little Ray]

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

[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..

[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.)