"Whole nine yards" : some negative evidence [addendum]

[Jesse Sheidlower]

On Sun, Oct 31, 2004 at 12:51:59PM -0800, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>
> The only explanation I can think of for a putative
> decades-long delay in getting an idiom like this into print,
> had it really been common in some branch of the military or
> elsewhere, would be if it had some obscene
> connotations.

One thing unaddressed in this note, Jon, is the possibility of
a _non_-decades long delay with the same proposed etymology.
This most recent thread has focused on the possibility that
_whole nine yards_ is a WWII-era term in reference to the
length of ammo belts.

If the expression really did arise in the Vietnam War, then
that would take care of the age issue. It arose, let's say,
very early in the war, it made it into a small number of
publications (_Doom Pussy_, the AF Academy glossary in
_Current Slang_), it didn't spread until after the war when
vets returned....

Not that this solves the bigger problem, i.e. of total lack of
evidence for ammo being measured in yards. But I'm not sure I
buy the 'obscene' explanation. Apart from _snafu_, a better
example might be _blivit_, another obscure number-based term
from WWII--and this was found, with its obscene explanation,
before the end of the 1940s. _whole nine yards_ would have to
be _really_ obscene for its obscenity to be the reason for
its nonappearance for two decades post-WWII, if it truly had
been common then.

Jesse Sheidlower
OED