barrel of monkeys

[Wilson Gray]

I may be entirely wrong, but I've always thought that "more fun than a
barrel of monkeys" was based on A Barrel of Monkeys, a children's game
played with toy monkeys taken from a toy barrel, the first monkey was
hung over the edge of the barrel and the remainder were hung by the
tails, until the chain broke. During The War, available at
Woolworth's, Kresge's, and other fine stores, as well as in the toy
departments of better department stores.

IME, the game is too complicated for pre-schoolers lacking the
necessary fine motor skills and too boring for older children, So,
I've always fet that the phrase is, or was, used tronically

-Wilson

On Fri, May 21, 2010 at 1:13 AM, victor steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com> wrote:
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> Poster: Â  Â  Â  victor steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject: Â  Â  Â barrel of monkeys
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>
> Does anyone have any links/pointers to previous research on "[more fun
> than] a barrel of monkeys"? It's trivially tracked to the 1880s, with
> a "student slang" glossary including it in 1895. NYT has the first
> searchable citation in 1893 and there is a generally sizable cluster
> in the 1880s-1890s in GB and in the 1890s in GNA. Since the search is
> rather trivial ({"barrel of monkeys"}, I am not going to account for
> all of it here, except for a couple of links. But I would like to
> learn more about it if anyone has more info.
>
> The Wiki entry is entirely unhelpful. There is also a post in the
> archives by Albert E. Krahn that dates it back to NEW YORK DISPATCH, 4
> October 1885, pg. 2, col. 6
> http://bit.ly/bDNTt2
>
> So I am not breaking any new ground here, but it's clear that the
> phrase really took hold in the 1880s. Where did it come from?
>
> The only thing that I found close is
>
> http://bit.ly/9HGsJ2
> The history of the hen fever: A humorous record By George Pickering
> Burnham. Boston: 1855 [GB has 1866.]
>> Among my most recently received samples, I beg especially to call the attention of fanciers, amateurs and breeders, to a ' vaggin-load of monkeys, vith their tails burned off' which I warrant will not frighten the most skittish of horses.
>
> The same phrase pops up in
>
> http://bit.ly/cC2pjH
> Dictionary of Americanisms: A Glossary of Words and Phrases, Usually
> Regarded as Peculiar to the United States. By John Russell Bartlett.
> New York: 1848. p. 302
>
> Where it is cited to the Pickwick Papers, Ch. 5.
>
> I can't find the original edition of the Pickwick Papers, but the
> phrase does show up in subsequent editions and in the Dickens
> Dictionary (1872). So that particular phrase goes back to 1837.
>
> Still, earlier
>
> http://bit.ly/aaYFe8
> Blackwood's magazine, Volume 14. Sept. 1823
> The Man-of-War's-Man. p. 278
>> "So it would appear," rejoined a third, shrugging up his shoulders," and the more is the pity, I say庸or they both, to my mind, richly deserved it; particularly that petticoated she-hyaena, who was the 'casion of all. D溶 me, but I'd shut her up with a deck load of monkeys, who'd have fondled her to death."
>
> WorldCat lists John Howell and Michael Scott as authors, but I have no
> idea if that's accurate. Harvard catalog lists no author. WorldCat and
> GB gather the authorship material from a hand-written cataloguing note
> in the NYPL Philadelphia-published copy (1833).
>
> http://bit.ly/9RvBRG
>
> It all may not be relevant, as "monkeys" here refers to deck hands.
>
> Another "load of monkeys":
>
> http://bit.ly/bn5TZX
> The English language. 5th ed, By Robert Gordon Latham. London: 1862
> CHAPTER IX. PROVINCIAL FORMS OF SPEECH AT PRESENT EXISTING. MERCIAN
> GROUP. ITS NEGATIVE CHARACTER. SPECIMENS, ETC. Lincolnshire. p. 390
>> "Lawd look besides there's lots o' things,
>> Â  All striped about in shape o' donkeys;
>> I wonder wots them there wi' wings,
>> Â  See what a precious load of monkeys!"
>
> Here "load of monkeys" is used in a similar sense, but it's not quite unpacked.
>
> There are two additional similes involving a man "who had swallowed a
> wagon-load of monkeys" (1854 and 1862).
>
> So there are plenty of varied references for loads of monkeys having
> their fun, but not "more fun than a barrel of monkeys".
>
> VS-)
>
> Selection of links for early "more fun than barrel of monkeys":
>
> http://bit.ly/d7KTCc
> Judge's Serial. No. 1. New York: August 1887
> THE MAN WHO TALKS; OR, The Drummer on the Rail.
> THE HUMOROUS ADVENTURES OF THREE MODEST DRUMMERS.
> From "JUDGE." p. 13
>
> http://bit.ly/atVhrR
> Longman's Magazine. London: December 1886
> Edged Tools. A TALE IN TWO CHAPTERS. p. 161
>
> Same text:
>
> http://bit.ly/9eCD8B
> A Nine Men's Morrice: Stories. By Walter Herries Pollock. London: 1889
> [GB tagged as 1887]
> p. 273
>
> http://bit.ly/cPUewQ
> NYT. June 18, 1893. p. 8
> ONE OF MULVANEY'S PETS; AN ELEPHANT LIKE THOSE MR. KIPLING TELLS ABOUT.
>
>
> http://bit.ly/bAxBRK
> The Inlander. A Monthly Magazine by the Students of Michigan
> University Vol. 6:3. DECEMBER 1895
> Student Slang. By Willard C. Gore [part II]. p. 115
>> (6). Simile.
>> barrel of monkeys, or bushel of monkeys, to have more fun than. To have an exceedingly jolly time.
>
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--
-Wilson
–––
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"––a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
–Mark Twain

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