The whole nine yards

The phrase "the whole nine yards" means "completely, the whole, everything" – e.g.:

"I was mugged. They took my wallet, my keys, my shoes, my cat – the whole nine yards!"

Origin

The origin of the phrase is not known, though it appears to have started appearing in print shortly after 1960. However, popular etymology has risen to the challenge, and a vast number of explanations of varying degrees of plausibility have been suggested. The proposed sources have been as diverse as the volume of graves or concrete mixers (in industry, volumes of concrete or dirt are noted in cubic yards); the length of bridal veils, kilts, burial shrouds, bolts of cloth, or saris; American football; ritual disembowelment; the above shipyards; and the structure of certain sailing vessels. Little documentary evidence has ever surfaced supporting any of these, and many labour under the significant disadvantage of being several centuries earlier than the first recorded use of the term. Perhaps the most frequently quoted is from the Second World War, where it is suggested that to "go the full nine yards" was to fire an entire aircraft machine-gun ammunition belt, nine yards in length.

The earliest identified use of the exact phrase dates from 1942, in the Investigation of the National Defense Program: Hearings Before a Special Committee Investigating the National Defense Program^[1], by Admiral Emory Scott Land, who said "You have to increase from 7.72 to 12 for the average at the bottom of that fifth column, for the whole nine yards". This use refers to the total output statistics for nine shipyards. On occasion it is possible that a plain sense phrase--in this case, on the nine shipyards, that, as a whole, produced with unprecedented speed those "Liberty Ships" that were crucial to the outcome of World War II--can take on a transferred or metaphorical sense.

Extensive searching using digitised documents has found a number of early citations for the phrase, two of which date back to 1962. These are a short story in the literary magazine Michigan's Voices; the other (as "all nine yards of goodies") is a letter in the auto magazine Car Life.^[2] Shortly thereafter, it is recorded as U.S. Air Force contexts,^[2] and in early 1964 as NASA slang.^[3][4] It then became popular among Air Force personnel in Vietnam.^[5] By November 1967 it was recorded in use in the U.S. Army, likewise from Vietnam, and by mid-1969 was appearing in newspaper advertisements in the United States.^[6] The first citation in the Oxford English Dictionary is from 1970, in the magazine Word Watching.^[7]

While no written occurrences with the modern meaning have yet been found predating 1962, a number of anecdotal recollections suggest the phrase dates back to sometime in the 1950s, potentially into the 1940s. One of the better-documented cases is provided by Captain Richard Stratton, who recorded in 2005 that he encountered the phrase during naval flight training in Florida in July 1955 as part of a ribald story about a mythical Scotsman.^[8] It has been suggested that there is strong circumstantial evidence it was not in general use in 1961, as Ralph Boston set a world record for the long jump that year at 27 feet, or nine yards, but no news report has been found that made any reference to the term, suggesting that journalists were unaware of it or did not regard it as common enough to use as a pun.^[9]

References