so waht ya doin today?

[Ian]

Yes, powder monkeys. At least that's what Cromwell's navy called them. There's an insert story in Time-Life's "Seafarer's" series from the volume "ships of the line" which briefs the life of a powder monkey.

 

[fiver]

powder monkey, ball monkey.
it's not like the sailors in HMS were oxford students.

 

[popper]

Went with the kid jeeping off road, some big rocks to drive over.

 

[smokeywolf]

Hhmmm . . . I guess "where you is" is out then huh?

Now you have me thinking about Jack Benny and Rochester... "Who dat, say "who dat" when I say, "who dat"".

 

[Rick]

Now Smokey, if you want to move to the Ozarks ya gotta speak the language.

 

[Pistolero]

I had lunch with a friend, able to pretty much pretend to have two normal legs, at least in the middle part of
the day.

Bill

 

[L Ross]

And here we all sit with baited bated breath waiting for Keith to post more pictures.

I've always wondered what that means . . . With baited breath. Hhmmm . . .

Bated is held breath, baited breath comes from eating sardines.

 

[L Ross]

Boy, I can see I should read all of the replies before adding my own.
Now toe the line. I thought that came from bare knuckles prize fighting wherein the combatants had to come to "scratch" or toe the line or lose the bout.
If you want to improve your vocabulary, read Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe series. The forum bonds we forge here, are likely a virtual propinquity effect.

 

[Bret4207]

Monkey in reference to the stacking and storage of cannon balls may well be a colloquial pronunciation of a French or Spanish word that sounded like monkey to the boys of the day. Who knows?! There are lots of words that get mangled in translation. We had a big hill outside a town I used to work in that everyone knew as "Raymo" hill. Wasn't till 30 some years after first learning to call it "Raymo" hill that I heard an old timer call it "Raymond" hill. The lights went on and it all made sense since Raymond was a big local name and what with everyone being French Canadian in that town Raymond became Ray-mon with a pretty much silent "n" which was Anglicized to Raymo. Maybe "monkey" is an Anglicized version of marquis? A marquis was a nobleman who controlled a limited territory, maybe the structure that controlled the balls from rolling around seemed like a similar duty? Or maybe it was after the animal for some weird reason.

 

[Pistolero]

Yes, could easily be so, Bret.

 

[fiver]

people got around the world pretty good for a long time.
borrowing words picked up in a bar or from a friend around a fire could have had some pretty far reaching consequences 100 years down the line if the right person or group heard and adopted them.

 

[Pistolero]

lots of French words mixed in to English during the fur trade era.

 

[Brad]

And some initialisms from French like RSVP.

 

[462]

This morning was a morning of good news reconfirmations.
Saw the retina doc and he reconfirmed that his right eye tear repair remains a success.
Prior to seeing him, his assistant reconfirmed that the new eyeglasses prescription upped the right eye's vision to 20/25 from 20/50, and the left eye is 20/20 (thumbs up, to the old-school optometrist).
The 18-month-old massive floater hasn’t gotten any smaller, but it is not one that requires surgery, so I’ll gladly live with its almost constant annoyance.
Back at home, an Amsler Grid self-test showed just a slight bit of waviness.
No more distorted targets, and no having to learn to shoot left-handed!

Loaded 50 rounds of .38 Special for a Tula versus Federal small pistol primer back-to-back test, for the Uberti Model 1866, but it’ll be 10-days before I can go to the range.

 

[Pistolero]

Good news on the eyes, Michael. Glad to hear it.

 

[smokeywolf]

Have to second Pistolero's comment, but add that I'd love to see a pic or two of the Model '66.

 

[dale2242]

Powder monkey is what we called someone that handled explosives in the timber industry....dale

 

[KeithB]

Compare these two phrases:

1. "...freeze the brass balls off a monkey."
2. "...freeze the balls off a brass monkey."

Same words, slightly different word order. The discussion here has been around the second phrase, with implication that the monkey is brass but not necessarily the balls. I have always heard the first phrase, which more closely implies that the balls are brass and probably the monkey as well.

The first usage could well have an animal statuary origin, the second could come from military artillery usage. Could we be looking at two distinct phrases with different origins? Or have I had too much coffee already this morning?

 

[462]

Hmmm . . . have only heard it said as per the second example. Hope this won't be running through my sieve-like brain the rest of the day.

 

[Pistolero]

The only version I ever heard is also the second version. Maybe because I come from a USN family, and I have many
USN-specific phrases embedded in my brain. Like "a big Bravo Zulu for that one!"......which often leaves people
baffled, and I have to explain, so I use it less often. Or "watch your six", many other figures of speech specific to
naval aviation and the Navy in general have been learned with many family members in the USN.

Dale - probably just a handy phrase moved over by somebody who was on a gun crew on a ship at some time.

I have always found etymology to be fascinating.

Bill