"Whole Nine Yards": 1971 Citation

[Fred Shapiro]

Has anyone already mentioned the following 1971 citation for "whole nine
yards"?

AS TO HOW MUCH is a "yard," it's $100, I'm told.  And "The whole nine
yards" is $1,000.  Or so say the game-table-boys.
        Burlington (N.C.) Times-News, August 11, 1971, page 20-A
(Newspaperarchive)

This early citation seems actually to have some explanatory etymological
content, in a non-Vietnam context, although why $1,000 should be nine
yards instead of ten yards is not clear.  There is nothing else in the
column from which this comes that sheds any other light on the term's
meaning or origin.

Fred Shapiro


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Fred R. Shapiro                             Editor
Associate Librarian for Collections and     YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS
  Access and Lecturer in Legal Research     Yale University Press,
Yale Law School                             forthcoming
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