the 1966 "nine yards" audience listed

[Stephen Goranson]

Thanks Bill for your comments and citations. I reckon our main
agreement is that more, especially early, cites may well shed more light. My
method shares that with yours. If I read your posts correctly, you have
variously declared the 1942 cite either totally irrelevant or of minor,
footnote-level significance. I'm a bit baffled how, if you do not yet claim to
know the origin, you claim such certainty that the 1942 cite plays little or no
role. I'd rather not argue methodology on a too-hot day. (I skipped Doug's
mention of "falsifiability"; no, I said to myself, not another round on Karl
Popper on history and whether Popper allows Popper-falsification. I'm at least
as interested in, oh, call it sociology of knowledge as this quote origin...and
what it all means in relation to OED's so-far inadequate etymology note on
"Essenes.'"--another day, if I may.)

Back to the phrase and context. It isn't enough to say, if I may, that I
repeat just military context. My repetition was partly to respond to Dave
Wilton's dismissal, which had the virtue of content. No, defense *contracting.*
Recall the 1966 audience, at least half of whom were defense contractors.
Defense contracting involves...contracts. That's what the 1964 NASA item by
item report appears to be about. Not the lame, non-emphatic ending that was
added by the newspaper reporter, report on "any project." And the 1964 cite
does not read to me as linear measure; nor do several of your new ones read as
linear. No, not "any project," but it is typically used of a big-deal project
or effort, ramified panoply of components, maybe labor union issues, maybe
steel shortages, maybe--cf. 1969 Graphic Science: complicated government
defense precurement specificationdocuments. NASA's project par excellence was
to go to the moon, before the USSR. Smash's clearest quote is the barbering
one. Elaine may have reverted the marriage one (suggesting lawyers,
negotiation, in-laws,....) to a knot of marriage; "untangling is her word I
think, not his. The 1966 record albumn had, what, Indiana poems, folkstories, I
don't know whatall, but differing components, items, contributions--not nine
identical linear measure increments, as if nine yards of record groove!

best wishes,
Stephen

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