[Ads-l] "[go/went] the full nine yards" (Interdating, 1946-1951)

Shapiro, Fred fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU
Wed Jan 20 03:20:23 UTC 2016


Bonnie,

Were you able to search for these citations because your university has purchased the full run of Louisville Courier Journal from ProQuest?  My university only has the pre-1922 component of that paper.

Fred



________________________________________
From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] on behalf of Bonnie Taylor-Blake [b.taylorblake at GMAIL.COM]
Sent: Monday, January 18, 2016 11:23 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: "[go/went] the full nine yards" (Interdating, 1946-1951)

Nothing particularly helpful here, but some folks find it strange that
we haven't been able to find uses of the idiom in the 35-year gap
between "The Whole Six Yards of It" (South Carolina, 1921) and "so
that's the whole nine-yards" (Kentucky, 1956), so I thought I'd try to
fill the gap.  The expression seems to have been a favorite of Mary
"Cissy" (Peterson) Gregg, 1903-1966, who wrote a cooking column for
The Courier-Journal (Louisville, KY).  She was born and raised in
north central Kentucky, not too far from Lexington and, a little
farther, Frankfort.

-- Bonnie

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Banana fritters can be eaten without any decoration other than a dash
of cinnamon, or a drift of whipped cream.  Others go the full nine
yards and serve them with a sauce.

[From Cissy Gregg, "Two All-Americans: Sausage and Sweets," The
Courier-Journal Roto-Magazine (Louisville, KY), 22 September 1946, p.
30.]

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We went the full nine yards and added mushrooms in an overall coverage.

[From Cissy Gregg & Pat Ogden, "Mixed Grill: The Way to a Man's
Heart," The Courier-Journal Magazine (Louisville, KY), 9 February
1947, p. 18.]

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It doesn't need a frosting more than perhaps a slight dusting of
powdered sugar.  We, however, always go the full nine yards and so
added a topping of buttered frosting and did a little decorating with
cinnamon drops and slivers of citron.

[From Cissy Gregg, "A Comfortable Christmas," The Courier-Journal
Magazine (Louisville, KY), 16 December 1951, p. 31.]

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