Carl Dershem wrote:
keith helgesen wrote:
Speaking of OT - from whence commeth "the whole nine yards"? Origin
anyone?
Cheers
K in OZ?
Cement trucks in the old days held 9 cubic yards of cement. A whole
load of cement for a job was "the whole 9 yards."
cd
Here is some background, according to this site:
http://www.yaelf.com/aueFAQ/mifwholenineyards.shtml
"the whole nine yards"
(Phrase Origins)
This phrase, meaning "all of it, everything", dates from at least the
1950s. The origin is a matter for speculation. 9 yards is not a
particularly significant distance either in football or in the garment
business (a man's three-piece suit requires about 7 square yards of
cloth, and cloth is sold in bolts of 20 to 25 yards). The phrase may
refer to the capacity of ready-mix concrete trucks, alleged to average
about 9 cubic yards. Some people (e.g., James Kilpatrick in _Fine Print:
Reflections on the Writing Art_) have satisfied themselves that the
concrete-trucks explanation is the correct one; but I haven't seen the
evidence. And Matthew Jetmore has unearthed some evidence to the
contrary, a passage from the August 1964 issue of _Ready Mixed Concrete_
Magazine: "The trend toward larger truck mixer units is probably one of
the strongest and most persistent trends in the industry. Whereas, just
a few years ago, the 4 1/2 cubic yard mixer was definitely the standard
of the industry, the average nationwide mixer size by 1962 had increased
to 6.24 cubic yards, with still no end in sight to the demand for
increased payload." The phrase is covered by Cecil Adams in _More of the
Straight Dope_, pp. 252-257.
Michael Nunamaker writes that a friend of his in the U.S. Air Force
suggested a World War II origin: "According to him, the length of the
ammunition belt (feeding the machine guns) in the Supermarine Spitfire
was nine yards. Therefore, when a pilot had shot all his ammunition he
would say he had 'shot the whole nine yards'."
Source: [Mark Israel, 'Phrase Origins: "the whole nine yards"', The
alt.usage.english FAQ file,(line 5471), (29 Sept 1997)]
--
David H. Bailey
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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