Chorley postponed

[LaxtonLad]

Did you know that the term " monkey" wrench comes from the original manufacture Moenke who invented the type of adjustable spanner in modern usage?

[countygump]

Did you know that the term " monkey" wrench comes from the original manufacture Moenke who invented the type of adjustable spanner in modern usage?

Well would you believe it?


Although the Jim Crow Museum stated that the monkey wrench was named after its inventor, Charles Moncky, not all historians agree. Herb Page, for example, wrote in a 2002 article entitled "Reach for the Wrench" in the Fine Tool Journal that Moncky was neither responsible for the tool's invention nor its name, and that the latter stemmed from the wrench's appearance:

Of course, over the years, some speculation indicated that the original inventor, a man named Monk or Monck was responsible for the name. However, this has been refuted by diligent historical and patent research. New England industrial pioneers, Loring Coes and Laurin Trask, around the end of the 19th century related the more plausible account. They indicated that the term "monkey wrench" was already in use prior to Coes' early patent (1841) and referred at that time to the earlier English type of adjustable wrench where you turned the handle to adjust the jaws.

I now provide some further evidence to back up Coes and Trask's allegation, in that a wrench labeled "Monkey Wrench" was depicted in the English tool catalogue issued by Timmins & Sons, which hails from the early to mid-1840s. Also, I show a very early English wrench from my collection that I reckon to be from about the same or an even earlier era. This item, with its rounded head and "twist the tail" (handle) to adjust the mouth feature, could easily inspire the image of a monkey. I conclude that the name came along with these early wrenches when they were shipped to America. This particular wrench is marked "5. Johnson Sheffield" with an "S.J." in a flag logo and exhibits the very fine detailed workmanship characteristic of early Sheffield tools.

In summation, while boxer Jack Johnson did patent a type of wrench in the 1920s, it was not the original monkey wrench. Furthermore, the tool was not named "monkey wrench" in an attempt to demean its inventor, as the term "monkey wrench" had been in use since at least the 1840s and most likely referred to the tool's original "twist the tail" method of adjusting the jaws.




https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ja...monkey-wrench/

[Magpies1959]

Whatever the origins of the monkey wrench, thank god it exists, as without it the Foo fighters would never have written that fine tune of the same name.

[lunaspie]

Whatever the origins of the monkey wrench, thank god it exists, as without it the Foo fighters would never have written that fine tune of the same name.

The only group of monkeys I saw at the zoo were the Poo Fighters.
I think they were macaques.

[bule1]

Funny how the BBC have decided to be updating the scores on this competition today, they never normally bother.

[tied_up_in_notts]

Whatever the origins of the monkey wrench, thank god it exists, as without it the Foo fighters would never have written that fine tune of the same name.

And what kind of world would we be living in without Dave and Ansel Collins' 1971 hit Monkey Spanner?

On a darker note, what a shame to see this thread hijacked by a load of tools

[SwalePie]

And what kind of world would we be living in without Dave and Ansel Collins' 1971 hit Monkey Spanner?

On a darker note, what a shame to see this thread hijacked by a load of tools

I saw that too

[bule1]

I would respond but I have had a few and I am hammered.

[Elite_Pie]

I saw that too

Me as well, but I didn't want to hammer it home in case it screwed the thread.

[SwalePie]

Me as well, but I didn't want to hammer it home in case it screwed the thread.

You should go for it. Socket to them!