"the whole nine yards" 1942

[Stephen Goranson]

The phrase was passed along in U.S. defense contracting circles and may well
have started there on April 23, 1942.

The 1966 usage that Bonnie Taylor-Blake found appears in Session IV, "Panel
discussion--Viet Nam," a 24 September 1966 session in Beverly Hills, CA of The
Society of Experimental Test Pilots, published in their Technical Review (v.8
n.2., "1966 Report to the Aerospace Profession"). The moderator was Leonard
Sullivan, from the Office of the Director of Defense Research and Engineering
(the same office reappears below). The three panelists were from the three
service branches. The speaker was Air Force Brigadier General Robert F. Worley.

"There are several answers to vulnerability problems produced by subsystem
arrangements. Self-sealing tanks were touched on this morning. Armor plating
around vital areas can help protect sub-systems.  Certainly emergency
mechanical linkage for control systems is an item we are all interested in.
Then two-engines, two pilots, and the rest, the nine yards of things that we
have really all been aware of for a long time and should pay a lot more
attention to." (p.176)

>From the front matter: "Sessions III and IV have been almost entirely
transcribed from taped recordings. Although a conscientious effort has been
made to assure accuracy in these transcriptions, the reader is requested to be
tolerant of any errors which may have occured in the process. This is
especially true in the areas of Vietnamese geographical names and recently
coined technical references."

On Sept. 24, 1973, Malcolm R. Currie, The Director, Defense Research and
Engineering testified at a House Defense Appropriations hearing. He submitted a
report. On page 431 in the report:
"_Use of prototypes_. We are using prototypes to improve the acquisition
process....mental prototypes, major programs to improve existing systems, and
the evaluation of foreign R. D. T. & E. programs.
_Radically smaller industry design teams_. We are attacking this problem from
both ends of the spectrum--that is, using experimental prototype programs to
determine the size of a 'bare-bones' team and, at the other end, scrubbing the
'whole nine yards' of requirements to the minimum that will still enable the
system to fill the operational need."

Currie was asked (p. 408) to introduce himself: "I was in the U.S. Navy in World
War II where I went through flight training." Then a physics and electrical
engineering Ph.D., Berkeley. Then with Hughes Aircraft and Beckman Instruments.
Recall the 1964 usage was of an item by item report on a project, and the 1969
Graphic Science "entire nine yards" usage was specifically on military
contracting.

This report was typeset in Department of Defense Appropriations for 1974:
Hearings ..., 93-1 (which I checked in the paper version); google books also has
scanned a typewritten (earlier?) version of the report that reads here "the
whole 9 yards." Some other congressional reports have "the full 9 yards,"  as
well as "whole" or "full nine." Often google misidentifies the dates and
sometimes also the names of committee hearings.

But probably (paper not seen because copy in storage apparently was misbarcoded
hence effectively lost) also from 1973 hearings: Inquiry Into the Alleged
Involvement of the Central Intelligence Agency in the Watergate and Ellsberg
matters, By United States Congress.House. Committee on Armed Services. Special
Subcommittee on Intelligence: (p974) "we give them the whole nine yards on a
sensitive source of the Office of Security. Mr. Whittaker. according to my
memo, ..."; (p.1018) "... 1 and Security Officer No. 2 how "Os says to keep it
out." The first thing next morning I am told to leave it in, the whole nine
yards."

1974 (? paper copy not seen): 1974 Hearings on Military Posture and H.R. 12564,
Department of Defense Authorization (p.3553): "No complicated format
statements, no complicated decisions of how to lay out memory and how to do the
whole 9 yards involved in getting, with our current programming techniques, what
is required. Or in the case of a weapons system, to get a little closer to your
suggestion, to be able to tell the computer:"

Stephen Goranson
http://www.duke.edu/~goranson

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org