the 1966 "nine yards" audience listed

[Douglas G. Wilson]

>In several of the early cites for the phrase, it looks as if it is
>being used as a synonym for "the distance": .... Might this imply
>that the origins of the figurative usage are in "yards" as a unit of
>distance?  Probably not, but worth considering. . . . (And note that
>I'm not advocating this, just offering it out there.)

"Unit of distance" is about the same as "unit of length" (to me anyway).

I think the most obvious meaning of "yard" is this one, and so I
think regardless of the 'original' sense the phrase in question would
be expected to be reanalyzed as referring to distance/length. So it
is no surprise that "go the whole nine yards" appears early (around
1970-1971, I think).

It is my impression that the earliest examples suggest a reference to
a quantity, e.g., yards of
cloth/ammunition/paper/text/feces/concrete/whatever, and not to
discrete objects, e.g., yards = spars, yards = shipyards, 'Yards =
mountain tribesmen, yards = penises, etc. Of course my impression is
of little value in isolation.

The number "nine" may be arbitrary ... or maybe not.

In some early clearly pertinent examples (1964 and [?]1966) "yards"
may be taken as a measure of information or perhaps text.

Of course "yards" has been conventional for a long time as an
expression or imprecise measure of a large amount of information or
text: e.g., MW3 shows an example of "yards of facts", while Google
Books turns up a few examples [without a number] of "yards of
information" from as early as 1922, "yards of text" from as early as 1853.

It is my guess that the appearance of the exact expression "whole
nine yards" in a discussion of shipyards in the 1940's has no
relevance to the phrase in question. Similarly I guess that the
"whole nine yards" which can be cited from the mid 19th century in a
story about a huge shirt is irrelevant too. Of course it is possible
that my guess is wrong (again) about one or the other of these.

-- Doug Wilson


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