Montagnards & 9 yards proposal

[Douglas G. Wilson]

>1. Doug Wilson, may I ask about your mention of "four instances in the book"?
>Are you counting any besides those in the 1967 book hardbound page 161 (140
>paperback ["full nine yards" and "...ninth yard"]) and 173 (150 pb ["The whole
>nine yards."])? If so what?

There's one earlier in the book. I have "D. P. II" here: p. 68: just before
Smash starts his correspondence with the lady: Smash gets a divorce:
"Slipping out of the knot was expensive but Smash eventually untangled the
whole nine yards." I think the wording was slightly different in the first
edition, and of course the page number would be different, but TWNY was the
same.

>2. A www.newspaperarchive.com search returned a supposed 6 May 1949
>Friday "whole nine yards" in Chronicle Telegram, Elyria, Ohio. But is this
>mistaken (perhaps for another Friday, 6 May 1994?), because it
>includes "videotaped"
>wedding. Also, if this Randall Cunningham is the football player (also married
>to a Felicity), he wasn't born by 1949. How accurate is this?

An error in the database. There are several like this. One must look at the
date on the page (or on another in the issue) (usually there is one).

>3. More generally, I'm interested in why some etymologies become forgotten or
>obscured.

An interesting question. If people care so little as to forget/ignore the
word origins, why do people trouble to invent etymythologies?

-- Doug Wilson