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

[Douglas G. Wilson]

>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. Without implying or denying a possible 1940s origin, my SWAG
>would be that, like "don't make waves," the phrase alludes, not to some
>factual "nine yards" that nobody's been able to determine after 35 years
>of thinking about it, but to the punch line of some grotesque phallic or
>scatalogical joke.

I had thought along somewhat similar lines:

http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0101A&L=ads-l&P=R3899

If not 9 yards of ammo or concrete, why not 9 yards of shit?

If this speculation is on the money, then it's easy to see how the
expression could have become popular in military circles. In this
hypothesis the "ammo belt" and other military etymologies (bomb bay length
etc.) would have originated possibly deliberately and probably early in the
expression's career, so that the guys in the know would have an inside joke
("Wow, Colonel, you really have the whole nine yards! Oh, that refers to
those old .50-cal. ammo belts, sir; it means you've really got it all!").
The hypothesis does not demand any particular dating, and there is possibly
an excuse for any lag which may have occurred in appearance in print.

Just another speculation.

-- Doug Wilson