whole nine yards -- predecessor phrase???

[Jonathan Lighter]

Bill, this is entirely new to me but very interesting.

JL

"Mullins, Bill" <Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL> wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: "Mullins, Bill"
Subject: whole nine yards -- predecessor phrase???
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>From _The American Golfer_, December, 1915, No. 2, p. 90-100. "Players of
the Period - VI. Mr. Edward Blackwell"

"He has suppressed the craving and given himself contentment, but when the
time for reunion
has come again he has gone the whole length, as we say in slang, and in a
fine enthusiasm has pursued this
game on the east coast and the west, among the highlands and the lowlands of
his own north Britain, and
then by the shores and in the nooks and crannies of England and in the very
heart of it where he has made
his home in Worcestershire."

I found a couple of other cites from this magazine in which "the whole
length" has more or less the same meaning we currently ascribe to "the whole
nine yards". Apparently it was thought of as a slang phrase then. I
haven't searched for it in any other sources.


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