Monkey on His Back

In my last post I used the saying "monkey on his back" and up until that point in time I had never really thought about the saying. What does "monkey on his back" really mean?

When I think about it my first thought is addiction and someone kicking a habit. Did heroin addicts at one time carry monkeys on their backs? Were organ grinders secret drug fiends? Is the monkey just an arbitrary choice? Could it have been just as easily "a koala on his back"?

My search for the origin of the phrase came up empty but left me with enough clues to make a educated guess. Back in the 1700's a small craft used to navigate canals was called a monkey boat (I don't know why it was called a monket boat - it just was) and small monkey boats could be ported out of the water to a destination on land on a person's back (with great difficulty and with much effort). So to get the monkey boat off one's back was a great relief.

Sounds good to me.

Although I couldn't find the origin of the phrase "monkey on his back" - I did find something on the phrase "tighty-whities".

Ain't the Internets great?