the 1966 "nine yards" audience listed (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Mullins, Bill AMRDEC]

Classification:  UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

First of all, to the extent that I haven't been "collegial or
constructive", that was not my intention.  Should the mystery of the
origin of "full/whole nine yards" ever be resolved, I think ADM Land's
statement should be reported as an interesting precursor.

I don't, however, believe it is part of the origin for this reason:

I know of no other slang/figurative expression which had its origin in
WWII and remained otherwise unknown in print for 20 years.  Even obscene
expressions (SNAFU and the like), which one would expect to remain
"underground", are traceable immediately thereafter.

I'm not an academic or professional in linguisitics, etymology,
lexicography, or the other related fields that get discussed on this
list.  I am only an "amateur philologist" (as Fred Shapiro recently
referred to me in an article about Murphy's Law).  But I've learned how
to do the sort of research that will eventually solve this puzzle.  I
don't think a literal usage, twenty years before the first known
figurative usage, is significantly more informative than other known
20th century literal usages simply because it comes from a military
context, as most of the earliest figurative usages do.  If it were
closer in time, maybe.  (If a late 1940's figurative usage from a
military context were found, that would immeidately lend weight to your
ADM Land citation).  Likewise, if other literal uses between WWII and
1962 from a military context were found, and could be related to ADM
Land or that hearing or naval shipyards, that would also tend to bolster
your theory.  But they are not known, and may not exist.

Having said all that, your discovery is still interesting to me.  I'm of
the opinion that new words and usages often grow, instead of appear.
I've spent a good deal of time trying to antedate words and phrases that
appear in Jeff Prucher's _Brave New Words_, and often found that
science-fictiony senses of words/phrases grew out of mundane senses that
had previously appeared, and that the decision as to which usage was the
first in an SF context could be somewhat arbitrary.  If that is the way
that "full/whole nine yards" grew, then it is important to document
literal usages that appeared prior to the first figurative usages.

But continued attempts to push ADM Land's statement in 1942 as relevant
to a figurative phrase whose earliest uses show up 20 years later have
to address that 20 year gap to be persuasive, at least to me.  And
pointing out the importance of the hearing, or noting a common military
context, simply aren't sufficient.  There has to be some sort of
interdating, either of literal usages that are traceable to Land, or of
figurative usages, which have a military context.

Collegially, and hopefully constructively,
Bill Mullins






> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society
> [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Stephen Goranson
> Sent: Wednesday, August 08, 2007 1:40 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: the 1966 "nine yards" audience listed
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Stephen Goranson <goranson at DUKE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: the 1966 "nine yards" audience listed
> --------------------------------------------------------------
> -----------------
>
> Quoting "Mullins, Bill AMRDEC" <Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL>:
>
> >>  "Shepard, Alan B., Jr.,
> >> Capt." is listed as "USN," even though he was the first U.S.
> >> astronaut to go up (in 1961).
> >
> > That he is listed as USN isn't particularly unusual.  Many
> astronauts
> > have been active-duty military personnel, who are detailed
> from their
> > service to NASA.  They retain their rank and military
> status, and in
> > my limited experience, continue to think of themselves primarily as
> > Navy/AF/Army/Marines etc., and secondarily as NASA/astronauts.
>
> My point was simply that the NASA representation was greater
> than those listed with NASA by their names. My more important
> observations on the 1966 attendees were that defense
> contracting presence was large; that the military were not
> all Air Force; and that Congress was represented too; and
> that tradents might be identified or suggested. (Alan Shepard
> lived on the next block in Virginia Beach; my Father was a
> career Navy officer; I am aware one could be in both the Navy
> and NASA.)
>
>
> >>  Of course the 1964 NASA slang
> >> citation does not prove that the phrase
> >> *originated* in NASA, only that it was used there; much
> less does the
> >> 1968 Air Academy Slang citation prove that it started at
> the Academy
> >> nor in the Air Force.
> >
> > Then how does the non-slang use by ADM Land indicate that he
> > originated a slang usage?
>
> I wrote that Land was speaking in plain, emphatic, dramatic
> language at a hearing that was important to the war
> effort--important to FDR, to Truman, to the NY Times, to
> defense contractors, to Britain, to labor unions, and to many
> others. The shipbuilding goal was a big goal, and one sought
> quickly. The biggest shipbuilding push in history demanded
> high productivity from the nine new shipyards specially
> created for the purpose. 24/7 work, going "all out" at the LA
> Times put it. The slang phrase (often used of a big deal) had
> a non-slang original (or Vorlage) from which the metaphoric
> usage took off. If, for example, there had been then concrete
> trucks that held 9 cubic yards, the phrase could have an
> original plain request, followed by metaphoric use. Or nine
> yardarms, plain speech; then metaphoric; and so on for most
> proposals. A difference here was an unplanned usage, rather
> than a oft-repeated original plain workaday usage. But the
> original was not cubic yards, nor linear yards, judging fron
> the earliest examples; the original "yards" would be some
> other yards than 36-inch yards. (And there are enough
> examples by know to see where some diverge, e.g. $100 yard
> and whole nine as $1000; and probably some misunderstanding
> of the original by Smash and then by Elaine Shepard.) The
> original (well-attested use, in context, not a google book
> chimera) is in U.S.
> defence contracting circles; several early uses are too. Many
> people have the sense that the phrase started in World War
> II. It appears that that part (not machine-gun belts) was
> right. I am not saying that Land set out to give a basis for
> slang, nor necessarily that he was first to use that slang.
> He died in 1971, still active in defense contracting,
> including Navy, Air Force and NASA, so it is plausible that
> he at least heard the slang, if not used it. Obviously there
> is more to learn about the transmission. Perhaps you'll help.
>
> Previously, I was mistaken that the yards were
> slangily-called Montagnards; I was mistaken, as shown not by
> disdain but by three facts: 1964 and two new 1966 citations.
> Robert Mole had written explicitly of Nine Montagnard Tribes
> in I Corps area in 1966, which overlaps with Elaine Shepard's
> book remarkably, in time and space--a remarkable coincidence,
> but not as it turned out the origin. I erred in assuming that
> since no pre 1966 cites were known to this list, such
> citations were improbable. I was wrong about that; I am more
> aware of the limits of the list (and also of various
> important but fallible reference works).
> In fact after the recent 1964 and 1966 citations were posted,
> but before I found the 1942 citation, I was at the grocery
> store and saw a professor of history who also had been a NASA
> historian. I told him of the recent NASA-related find. He
> replied that he didn't know it as specifically NASA slang. He
> mentioned his sense that it was from World War II. Not
> likely, I assured him; heavy-duty searchers have searched,
> and nary a World War II period citation (even though the 1964
> usage with exceedingly-high probability isn't the first
> usage). Then, a day or two later, I got the hearing from
> storage and found one: "for the whole nine yards." (That
> longer form with "for the..."
> itself gets 69 raw Google Books hits.) A usage that reappears
> in Defense hearings and defense contracting circles. So far,
> other than the helpful whole /all, mass/count comments of
> Laurence Horn and Clai Rice (thanks) and the 1964 and 1966
> new citations (thanks), I have gotten more useful
> observations from people offlist.  Unexplained dismissals
> aren't collegial or constructive. Dave Wilton's repeated
> assurance that Senate hearing are generally unnoticed, with
> whatever merits generally, does not fit the history I've
> learned about this specific hearing. Is there a better
> hypothesis? Does anyone know that 1942 is too early? Do slang
> phrases never arise from a non-metaphoric original? Do others
> care to declare this proposal excluded from consideration?
> Does anyone dispute that appearance in Air Academy slang does
> not necessarily mean it started there (or, similarly, in
> NASA)? I have been wrong before, but my current expectation
> is that this case history will eventually be filled in,
> regardless of the level of interest here.
> This list is pretty good at some things, and might help.
>
> Stephen Goranson
> http://www.duke.edu/~goranson
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
Classification:  UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

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