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The phrase "cold enough to freeze the balls off (or ''on'') a brass monkey" is a colloquial expression used by some English speakers. The reference to the testes (as the term ''balls'' is commonly understood to mean) of the brass monkey appears to be a 20th-century variant on the expression, prefigured by a range of references to other body parts, especially the nose and tail. During the 19th and 20th centuries, small monkeys cast from the alloy brass were very common tourist souvenirs from China and Japan. They usually, but not always, came in a set of three representing the Three Wise Monkeys carved in wood above the Shrine of Toshogu in Nikkō, Japan. These monkeys were often cast with all three in a single piece. In other sets they were made singly. Although three was the usual number, some sets of monkeys added a fourth, with its hand covering its genitals. Old brass monkeys of this type are collectors' items.〔(Three Wise Monkeys website )〕〔(Emil Schuttenhelm )〕 Michael Quinion, advisor to The Oxford English Dictionary and author of ''World Wide Words'' says "It’s more than likely the term came from them".〔Michael Quinion, full citation below〕 ==Use== Early references to "brass monkeys" in the 19th century have no references to balls at all, but instead variously say that it is cold enough to freeze the tail, nose, ears, and whiskers off a brass monkey; or hot enough to "scald the throat" or "singe the hair" of a brass monkey.〔Mikkelson, Barbara. "(Brass Monkeyshines )." ''snopes.com.'' 13 July 2007. Web. Retrieved 27 March 2012.〕 * An early known recorded use of the phrase "brass monkey" appears in the humorous essay "On Enjoying Life" by Eldridge Gerry Paige (writing under the pseudonym "Dow, Jr."), published in the ''New York Sunday Mercury'' and republished in the book ''Short Patent Sermons by Dow, Jr.'' (New York, 1845):〔(Google Books image of ''Short Patent Sermons'', p. 108. )〕 * Another early published instance of the phrase appeared in 1847, in a portion of Herman Melville's autobiographical narrative ''Omoo'':〔''Living Age'', New York 14(167):151 — Ref:Phrase Finder.〕〔(Google Books image of the ''Living Age'' citation by Melville. )〕 :"It was so excessively hot in this still, brooding valley, shut out from the Trades, and only open toward the leeward side of the island, that labor in the sun was out of the question. To use a hyperbolical phrase of Shorty's, 'It was 'ot enough to melt the nose h'off a brass monkey.'" * An early recorded mentioning of the freezing a "brass monkey" dates from 1857, appearing in C.A. Abbey, ''Before the Mast'', p. 108: "It would freeze the tail off a brass monkey".〔Lighter, J.E.〕 Michael Quinion's World Wide Words website says: "it was first recorded in the USA, in the 1850s...in the oldest example known, from Herman Melville’s Omoo (1850)" * The story "Henry Gardner" (10 April 1858) has "its blowing hard enough to blow the nose off a brass monkey" * The poem "Lines on a heavy prospector and his recent doings in the North-West" (20 June 1865) has "It would freeze off a brass monkey's nose" * The article "Echoes from England" (23 May 1868) has "that same east wind ... would shave the whiskers off a brass monkey" * ''The Story of Waitstill Baxter'', by Kate Douglas Wiggin (1913) has "The little feller, now, is smart's a whip, an' could talk the tail off a brass monkey".〔as quoted by Quinion.〕 * ''The Ivory Trail'', by Talbot Mundy (1919) has "He has the gall of a brass monkey".〔 *Thomas Wolfe (1900–1938) wrote in one of his notebooks:〔''The Notebooks of Thomas Wolfe'', vol. 2, edited by Richard S. Kennedy and Paschal Reeves, University of North Carolina Press, 1970, p. 497.〕 :Ernest said, "It would freeze the balls off a brass monkey — that's how cold it gets." *The play, "The Animal Kingdom" (1932), by Philip Barry, has the following passage: :GRACE: Well, I guess I'd better be "barging along," as they say. I'm sure it's getting colder by the minute. :TOM: Yes—I think we'd best bring the brass monkeys in tonight.〔(【引用サイトリンク】author=Philip Jerome Quinn Barry )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Brass monkey (colloquialism)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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