"Gareth Owen" wrote in message
...
"Lloyd E. Sponenburgh" writes:

Nope, it has a quite definite etymology, but a rather exotic one.

The story I've heard is that it refers (in some way I could never
figure) to cannonballs and powder monkeys on Naval ships.

From the rather small niche of black powder historians, the story comes this
way:

Anyone who physically handled cannon balls or powder was known as a "ball
monkey" or "powder monkey". The term "powder monkey" is still used today.
"Ball monkey" seems to have been lost.

On board most armed ships of the British fleet were triangular brass racks -
low bars of brass forged into an equilateral triangle - mounted to the
decks, into which to stack cannon balls in the familiar pyramid fashion.
This, to ready the balls for quick access.

Although the "brass monkeys" were only an inch or two high, the stacks made
within them were quite stable -- until the temperature dropped very, very
cold. At that point, due to different coefficients of expansion between
brass and iron, the balls came tumbling off their racks.

Thus, "cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey". Of course, the
vulgar connotations came quite soon after. G

LLoyd