英语词汇monkey wrench的起源、历史背景-英语词源词典

monkey wrench. One would think that the monkey wrench was so named because the wrench’s sliding jaws reminded someone of a monkey’s chewing apparatus. This may be the case, but there is some reason to believe that the tool was named after its inventor. One source suggests that this me- chanical wizard was London blacksmith Charles Moncke, but the British do not commonly call the tool a monkey wrench, using instead the term adjustable spanner wrench, or just span- ner, so this theory is suspect. A more likely explanation turned up some years ago in a collection of clippings on word origins collected by a Boston doctor. One article from the Boston Transcript, appearing in the winter of 1932–33, attributed the wrench’s invention to a Yankee mechanic by the name of Monk employed by Bemis & Call of Springfield, Massachusetts. Monk supposedly invented the movable jaw for a wrench in 1856 and although it was given another name at first, workers in his shop were soon calling it monkey wrench. The tale has not been confirmed, but the 1856 date coincides with the first use of the word in the Oxford English Dictionary (1858). None of the standard dictionaries make an attempt to trace the word’s origin, not even to say that the wrench resembles a monkey’s jaw, just as a crane resembles a crane’s neck.

词汇	monkey wrench
词源	monkey wrench. One would think that the monkey wrench was so named because the wrench’s sliding jaws reminded someone of a monkey’s chewing apparatus. This may be the case, but there is some reason to believe that the tool was named after its inventor. One source suggests that this me- chanical wizard was London blacksmith Charles Moncke, but the British do not commonly call the tool a monkey wrench, using instead the term adjustable spanner wrench, or just span- ner, so this theory is suspect. A more likely explanation turned up some years ago in a collection of clippings on word origins collected by a Boston doctor. One article from the Boston Transcript, appearing in the winter of 1932–33, attributed the wrench’s invention to a Yankee mechanic by the name of Monk employed by Bemis & Call of Springfield, Massachusetts. Monk supposedly invented the movable jaw for a wrench in 1856 and although it was given another name at first, workers in his shop were soon calling it monkey wrench. The tale has not been confirmed, but the 1856 date coincides with the first use of the word in the Oxford English Dictionary (1858). None of the standard dictionaries make an attempt to trace the word’s origin, not even to say that the wrench resembles a monkey’s jaw, just as a crane resembles a crane’s neck.
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