the 1966 "nine yards" audience listed

[Douglas G. Wilson]

I will present the casual opinions of a relative [some would say
nearly absolute] nonentity (i.e., me).

>.... Is there a better hypothesis?

There are some which I like better (i.e., find more likely/plausible).

Here is one: an exhaustive list of things was called a "nine-yard
list" or a "list nine yards long" [meaning just "a very long list",
cf. "a list as long as your arm" etc.], thence <<Should I list
_everything_? / Yep, give 'em the whole nine yards.>>

Not very sexy, but reasonably plausible and not falsifiable AFAIK.

Quite possibly the real story is one nobody has mentioned at all.

[Who would have guessed that "say 'uncle'" came from a joke about a
parrot? But I think it very probably did (I posted the evidence here
some time ago and Quinion presented it recently).]

>Does anyone know that 1942 is too early?

I don't think anybody knows that.

>Do slang phrases never arise from a non-metaphoric original?

I believe they often do.

>Do others care to declare this proposal excluded from consideration?

I don't. I'd put it way down the list, but who cares where I'd put
it? As the data come in (more old stuff digitized, etc.) we will learn more.

>Does anyone dispute that appearance in Air Academy slang does not
>necessarily mean it started there (or, similarly, in NASA)?

I don't dispute that at all. But Armed Forces origin is a good guess
for slang in many cases IMHO.

-- Doug Wilson


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