The Origins of Expressions, Myths and Traditions

I love researching the origins of expressions, myths and traditions although the research often turns up more questions than answers.

The origins of the idiom "cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey" are often attributed to nautical practices. Pirates and mariners of old would store their cannonballs in pyramids atop brass trays called "monkeys."

As brass contracts more than iron with decreasing temperatures, the extreme cold would supposedly cause the cannonballs to roll off the monkeys.

However, there are some discrepancies in this explanation.

Scientifically, while the thermal coefficients of brass and iron are indeed different, it seems unlikely that the brass could contract enough to dislodge the cannonballs.

Practically, storing cannonballs in this fashion, while perhaps efficient, seems a bit problematic as the pitching of a ship in high waves seems more likely to knock the balls off than freezing temperatures.

Moreover, some skeptics claim that there is no evidence this arrangement of cannonballs was ever called a brass monkey.

Despite these inconsistencies, the idiom persists, perhaps due to its vivid imagery and the tendency of people to exaggerate or accept claims without fully examining their validity.

Another curious tradition, Groundhog Day, is rooted in superstition and folklore.

On February 2, a groundhog is said to emerge from its burrow and, if it sees its shadow, we are in for six more weeks of winter. If it does not see its shadow, spring will arrive early.

This tale, specifically the date, originates from the Pennsylvania Dutch, who brought the concept of weather-prognosticating animals with them.

One can perhaps understand the superstitions of our ancestors, as their very survival depended on the coming of spring when the winter stores of food were running low.

Today, the tradition continues, but most people view it as a bit of harmless fun (at least I hope that's the case). It doesn't take a genius to see all the flaws in the concept of a furry soothsayer, not the least of which is that spring arriving early is highly subjective.

It is also subject to latitudinal variations.

In Pennsylvania (and also southern B.C., coincidentally), groundhogs start coming out of hibernation around the beginning of February, but in Ontario, the rodents don't start emerging from their burrows until mid-March. Keep going north and the deep sleep can even last into April.

There have been attempts to explain the phenomenon scientifically. We know that sunshine, which facilitates the seeing of shadows, is associated with cold in the winter. Therefore, cold at the beginning of February might mean more winter ahead.

But explaining it scientifically depends on a degree of accuracy in the rodent-turned-meteorologist equation.

The most famous of all the groundhog forecasters is Punxsutawney Phil, a pseudo-mythical critter who has been foretelling the prolonging of winter or early coming of spring since 1887.

That is a good long sample size to accurately assess accuracy and Phil does not do well in that regard. Depending on the aforementioned subjectivity of what constitutes an early spring, experts give Phil an accuracy rating of between 20 and 40 per cent.

That's not even as good as what might be expected from flipping a coin.