Monday, January 17, 2011

Question 489: How Cold Is it?

It is often stated that the phrase originated from the use of a certain metallic tray, called a "____", to hold cannonballs on warships in the 16th to 18th centuries. Supposedly, in very cold temperatures the "___" would contract, causing people to remark, " ___X___"

Later on, a humorist personified this phrase in the form of a patent for the picture below. He says that it works upon the conditions and principles of the phrase __X__, such that when a preset optimum climatic conditions are achieved, it shall cause a noise, emanating from the result of the phrase, as an indication that it is "_____X______"

SO ID X, the phrase in question (or in reply to the question asked)
(Filling in the blank would only give you part of the phrase)



ANSWER:


Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey.
The picture is of the device described in the patent.
(Notice how somebody dropped the ball on this one
lol)



8 comments:

Archimonde said...

Freeze the balls off the brass monkey! XD

Unknown said...

X is "cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey"
tray is called "monkey"
"balls" would contract

Nagaratna said...

Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey.

Aravind V said...

"Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey"

Unknown said...

freeze the balls off a brass monkey, nice one

Yogarshi said...

Brass Monkey

manish hn said...

the phrase is "cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey"......the cannonball tray thingy was made of brass and was called a monkey

Rohan said...

should have got this one, knew it!