Guess What?

Originally posted by Keith Webb
Wasn't it a brass frame used to keep a pyramid of canon balls in place which contracted with cold causing the balls to be displaced...

But then again, a little research reveals this may be false (although it is common useage now).

Good stuff, ripper mate.

Can't fault that.

In fact a visit to our national hero's battleship, HMS Victory, just down the road from me in Portsmouth Dockyard, will show several brass monkeys correctly rigged with round shot, and all on the protected gun decks.

My own theory is that its partly true, the three-layer pyramid of shot is quite well planted although the monkey has but the smallest dimples to locate the first layer. I suspect manufacturing tolerance back then, plus some arctic cold and a heavy sea may have finally disloged some shot giving rise to the expression said in clever jest at the time, but it stuck.

We will never know for sure.

R.