Do you know what that's from? Cannon balls on a ship used to be made of iron and the stands they were stacked on were the same metal: you'd always lose the bottom layer to corrosion. So they made the stand out of brass instead. For some reason, the name of this stand was "monkey". But in cold weather of a certain temperature, the monkey would shrink and the balls would pop off it.
Nevertheless, when I lived in New England there were some winters when I swear I saw a crowd of brass monkeys carrying welding equipment...
You can take the man out of England, but...
ReplyDeleteDo you know what that's from? Cannon balls on a ship used to be made of iron and the stands they were stacked on were the same metal: you'd always lose the bottom layer to corrosion. So they made the stand out of brass instead. For some reason, the name of this stand was "monkey". But in cold weather of a certain temperature, the monkey would shrink and the balls would pop off it.
ReplyDeleteNevertheless, when I lived in New England there were some winters when I swear I saw a crowd of brass monkeys carrying welding equipment...