Here is a letter which recently appeared in the Radio Times: Mutiny on the Monty THE FULL MONTY does not originate from Field Marshal Montgomery or Montague Burton: its derivation dates back to the Peninsular War, when British troops encountered a Spanish card game in which the discarded cards were placed in a heap in the centre of the table. The heap was called a monte – Spanish for mountain. At the end of the game, the winner collected all the cards in the heap – the full monte. British pronunciation turned the monte into 'monty' and the phrase acquired two meanings: to win a card game and to get, or give, everything. Frances Fontaine, Halesowen, West Midlands We consulted Paddy Griffith concerning this interesting letter, especially because matters relating to the Peninsular War are in his mind at this time due to his editing the forthcoming Volume IX to A History of the Peninsular War. He responded saying: 'This sounds plausible to me, but why locate it in the Peninsular War rather than the Spanish Main of the 1600s or in the Andalucian 1700s? Sorry – I really cannot back it up, or otherwise. I suggest you put it into Greenhill Military Book News (because it is a good story, likely to be true) and ask your knowledgeable readership to respond and confirm with a specific source.' Back to Greenhill Military Book News No. 89 Table of Contents Back to Greenhill Military Book News List of Issues Back to Master Magazine List © Copyright 1999 by Greenhill Books This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com