What's the most British way of saying it's cold outside?

Tori_Scope
Tori_Scope Scope Posts: 12,471 Championing
in Coffee lounge
Disclaimer: I've borrowed this question from Very British Things

What's the most British way of saying it's cold outside?
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  • Tori_Scope
    Tori_Scope Scope Posts: 12,471 Championing
    I'll start.

    'It's a bit nippy'
  • Alex_Alumni
    Alex_Alumni Scope alumni Posts: 7,536 Championing
    It's just a tad chilly! 
  • Steve_in_The_City
    Steve_in_The_City Scope Member Posts: 813 Trailblazing
    I'm freezing my dangly things off
  • ShirleyW
    ShirleyW Online Community Member Posts: 353 Empowering
    'bit parky out there!
  • Geoark
    Geoark Online Community Member Posts: 1,469 Championing
    For me it is the Met Office: Yellow Ice and Snow warnings.

    You just know it will be cold when we are expecting yellow ice or yellow snow.
  • durhamjaide2001
    durhamjaide2001 Scope Member Posts: 15,415 Championing
    It's chilly out here 
  • Hannah_Alumni
    Hannah_Alumni Scope alumni Posts: 7,866 Championing
    I'm frozen today
  • Binky1234
    Binky1234 Online Community Member Posts: 478 Empowering
    It's cold enough to:
    Freeze the balls of a brass monkey.
  • Puja
    Puja Scope Member Posts: 99 Contributor
    Chuffin’ ‘ell its freezin’ 

    or when you can see your breath when outside and can feel fingers and toes 🙃
  • rebel11
    rebel11 Online Community Member Posts: 1,688 Pioneering
    My capillaries are frozen, luckily I'm covered by the AA (Automobile Association). 
  • Sparklebright63
    Sparklebright63 Scope Member Posts: 171 Contributor
    It's Like been in an Artic Country the weather is So Cold.
  • Elysium
    Elysium Scope Member Posts: 94 Empowering
    Binky1234 said:
    It's cold enough to:
    Freeze the balls of a brass monkey.
    Yes this one!!!  :D
    what the heck is a brass monkey anyhoo?
  • L_Volunteer
    L_Volunteer Community Volunteer Adviser, Scope Member Posts: 7,922 Championing
    Not necessarily verbalised but just through body language - people going outside and quickly coming back inside saying 'not yet'  :D
  • OverlyAnxious
    OverlyAnxious Online Community Member Posts: 5,412 Championing
    Elysium said:
    Binky1234 said:
    It's cold enough to:
    Freeze the balls of a brass monkey.
    Yes this one!!!  :D
    what the heck is a brass monkey anyhoo?
    It was a cannon ball storage rack on a ship. 

    The cold weather made the brass contract, so the balls no longer fitted in the rack and fell off. 

    Not ideal to have cannon balls rolling around your ship during a battle at sea!  :D
  • L_Volunteer
    L_Volunteer Community Volunteer Adviser, Scope Member Posts: 7,922 Championing
    More good ones @OverlyAnxious :)
  • Sandy_123
    Sandy_123 Scope Member Posts: 63,129 Championing
    Nippy ain't the word
  • Wibbles
    Wibbles Online Community Member Posts: 3,036 Championing
    edited December 2022
    OverlyAnxious said:
    Elysium said:
    Binky1234 said:
    It's cold enough to:
    Freeze the balls of a brass monkey.
    Yes this one!!!  :D
    what the heck is a brass monkey anyhoo?
    It was a cannon ball storage rack on a ship. 

    The cold weather made the brass contract, so the balls no longer fitted in the rack and fell off. 

    Not ideal to have cannon balls rolling around your ship during a battle at sea!  :D
    This story is a myth. This story has been discredited by the U.S. Department of the Navy,etymologist Michael Quinion, and the Oxford English Dictionary (OED).
    They give five main reasons:
        The OED does not record the term "monkey" or "brass monkey" being used in this way.
        The purported method of storage of cannonballs ("round shot") is simply false. The shot was not stored on deck continuously on the off-chance that the ship might go into battle. Indeed, decks were kept as clear as possible.
        Furthermore, such a method of storage would result in shot rolling around on deck and causing a hazard in high seas. The shot was stored on the gun or spar decks, in shot racks—longitudinal wooden planks with holes bored into them, known as shot garlands in the Royal Navy, into which round shot was inserted for ready use by the gun crew.
        Shot was not left exposed to the elements where it could rust. Such rust could lead to the ball not flying true or jamming in the barrel and exploding the gun. Indeed, gunners would attempt to remove as many imperfections as possible from the surfaces of balls.
        The physics does not stand up to scrutiny. The contraction of both balls and plate over the range of temperatures involved would not be particularly large. The effect claimed possibly could be reproduced under laboratory conditions with objects engineered to a high precision for this purpose, but it is unlikely it would ever have occurred in real life aboard a warship.
    The phrase is most likely a humorous reference to emphasize how cold it is.


  • vikingqueen
    vikingqueen Scope Member Posts: 1,899 Championing
          Up north we don't notice.... If it snows we put a jumper on, but the shorts stay  ;)
  • durhamjaide2001
    durhamjaide2001 Scope Member Posts: 15,415 Championing
    I can't wait to get home and get a cuppa 
  • rebel11
    rebel11 Online Community Member Posts: 1,688 Pioneering
    I use to go to work wearing a short sleeved shirt in really low temperatures.

    Can't do that these days, runny nose, tearful eyes etc.  

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