The Whole Nine Yards

[Southern Breeze]

This is one of those sayings that likely has multiple beginnings.Who knows where it started. :grin:
As for the ammunition belts, the water cooled Brownings used 250 round cloth belts.They saw action originally in WWI. Later metal link belts were devolped that could be joined to make any length.

[haukehaien]

The machine-gun belt explanation simply doesn't work. (All of these things have been pointed out before, but people keep ignoring them)

1) MG belts are measured in rounds. Not feet, not yards, not metres, not Babylonian cubits nor any other unit of length. If a unit besides rounds were to be used, it would most likely be weight, that being the thing that would concern a pilot or trooper.
2) If the phrase did come from WWII MG terminology, why doesn't it show up until the 1960s? We've got lots and lots of writing from that war, plenty of accounts by people who lived and fought through it... and nobody uses the phrase until the mid 60s.

My suspicion is that it is going to be extremely difficult to track down. If Cecil Adams, Evan Morris, and Melanie and Mike of Take Our Word For It (www.takeourword.com) can't come up with an answer, then the answer is very obscure indeed. What this means for us is this: any answer we have, which does not come with an appropriate citation and time period, is almost certainly wrong. Of the explanations posted, the dirty joke seems the most likely. It has the right time period, it's not related to anything in real life (which would explain why nobody's been able to point at something and say, "See! ______s have always been nine yards long!")

The world may never know.

[Moosehead]

Any sources? As you can see, theories abound to the origin, but nothing with any substance from a research perspective.

I'm from Missouri, so you'll have to "Show Me"!

Todd

What am I, a lawyer? Actually, just found that surfing around, so don't ask me where, 'cause I'd probably never find it again.

[macwilkin]

What am I, a lawyer? Actually, just found that surfing around, so don't ask me where, 'cause I'd probably never find it again.

Nope...but I'm a librarian and a history teacher! :mrgreen:

Be careful with the 'net -- I tell my students that every semester. ;)

Todd

[Moosehead]

Grasshopper hears you, Master.

[arrogcow]

For what it is worth, 10 years ago when I had material woven for my first kilt (private weaver), she told me that I needed 9 yards for a kilt. Granted I know more now.

Additionally one of the Welsh Cilt makers sells 9, 10 and 11 yard kilts.

Adam

[freddie]

A British or English phrase meaning exactly the same thing is 'the full monty'. Apparantly this phrase was coined following the opening artillary barrage at the Battle of El Alemain (not the right spelling I know) which was ordered by the British General Montgomery. British troops said the enemy had received 'the full Monty' (Montgomery's nickname) so a military source for the phrase 'the whole nine yards' is very plausible.

[haukehaien]

It appears extremely unlikely that "The Full Monty" has anything to do with Field Marshal Montgomery - again, if a phrase is supposed to come from the Second World War, there should be some evidence that it might have actually been used during the war, and not 20-40 years later.

Please see the following links for some discussion of "The Full Monty", a phrase which first cropped up in the mid-eighties.

http://www.word-detective.com/093098.html#monty

http://www.wordorigins.org/

[auld argonian]

I'm really going to have to side with the often refuted explanation that it has it's origins in American football. Since there's evidence that the phrase originated in the 1960's, a time when football gained a new popularity because of televsion coverage, I have to think that it came from a running back's taking the ball and running nine yards to accomplish a first down...I know that a first down is ten yards but I gotta think that on the previous down the back tried to get through the line and managed to pick up only one yard and then came back on the next play to break through and run nine yards for the first down only to be tackled by the defensive backs. I've always heard the expression phrased in ways like "he went the whole nine yards for me" or "if you're going to do this then you're going to have to go the whole nine yards"...I've really never heard it phrased as the whole nine yards being given to someone. I gottta go with the footbal origin theory.

Best

AA

[The Wizard of BC]

OK, I can't resist adding my own totally stupid and improbable origin of the phrase.

In Viet-Nam there was this stuff called 90 mile-an-hour-tape.
That is Duct Tape to you who are not old enough.

Anyway, the stuff was green, available in vast quantities and the best thing in the world to repair holes in the rotor-blades of your helicopter 'cause it was so sticky that it would stay on up to, you guessed it, 90mph.

I came in small 27 ft. rolls that fit real nice in the pockets of your flight suit.

Around the bar at the officers club you can just hear all the hot-shot pilots;

"There I was, and this is no s*^t, 50 ft. over the canopy, inverted, with tracers so thick I could light my cigarette on them, my CP was spewing blood from a 7mike-mike and the DG was spewing his lunch. Heck when I got us home there were so many holes in the Heubert it took the whole nine yards just to keep even with the hydraulic fluid leaks.

I'll now take my grayhaired old butt and slink back behind the sewing machine.