Brass Monkeys

It's cold today - brass monkey weather. Strangely, “Freeze the balls off a brass monkey” is not a rude expression. It comes from an old Navy saying about cannonballs, which were stacked up on a tray called a brass monkey. The cannonballs, being made of iron, didn’t shrink at the same rate when it got cold, as the brass of the monkey. Hence the balls would fall off when the temperature dropped.

For more creative translations, check out my romantic comedy, Loosely Translated, where a Spanish translator meets the author of the awful detective series that she has "improved". If that sounds like your cup of tea, buy me a couple of beers - that's about how much the book costs, and you'll get that warm, fuzzy feeling of helping out an indie author. Cheers!

Loosely Translated at Amazon.com