whole nine yards

[Stephen Goranson]

Correct me if I'm mistaken, but I think there are two, not three, relevant
passages in The Doom Pussy, published in 1967. Two, unless one counts as the
third relevant feature, the extensive descriptions and photos of Montagnards
(i.e., 'yards). The Doom Pussy II, published in 1991, adds a late use that
sounds as if it might have to do with linear measure. But the earliest uses, I
think, do not appear to involve linear measure. Rather than linear measure, or
marriage, or wife, or calico, a complete group, or the full compliment, or
complete force. Again: perhaps reconsider 'Yards.

Stephen Goranson


Quoting "Douglas G. Wilson" <douglas at NB.NET>:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Douglas G. Wilson" <douglas at NB.NET>
> Subject:      Re: whole nine yards
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> >"Sunday comes, I must go,
> >Swing nine yards of calico."
>
> This is an old metonym, a specialized form of "[piece of] calico" =
> "woman". "Nine yards of calico" means "a woman's dress" and hence "a
> woman". Nine yards was considered a conventional amount for this use.
>
> Of course one swings his [female] square dance partner, and this woman is
> the "nine yards of calico" here.
>
> Here is a much older and more overt example:
>
> ----------
>
> _Brooklyn Daily Eagle_, 21 Feb. 1853:
>
> <<COURTING. -- One of the most delicate avocations that some young men
> have, is when they have made up their mind that nine yards of calico is an
> essential and necessary requirement to their happiness and comfort in this
> mundane sphere. ....>>
>
> ----------
>
> The Manly Wade Wellman quotation in the "nine yards" entry in HDAS also
> refers to this metonym, I THINK, although this is obfuscated by reference
> to a supposedly traditional "nine-yard shroud" (I'm still waiting for any
> corroboration of such a traditional shroud length). I can explain further
> if anyone's interested.
>
> I don't know whether there is or ever has been a dichotomy between
> "bit/piece of calico" = "girlfriend"/"date" and "[whole] nine yards of
> calico" = "wife"/"marriage".
>
> Possibly irrelevant and coincidental: in the book "The Doom Pussy" where
> TWNY first appeared in print (AFAIK), the context in two of three cases
> would easily permit "whole nine yards" to stand for "marriage"/"wife" or
> "[relationship with a] woman".
>
> -- Doug Wilson
>