"the whole nine yards" 1942

[Dave Wilton]

I strongly doubt this is anything other than an coincidental collocation.
"Nine yards", in various literal senses, is very common going back
centuries; that someone, somewhere, sometime would have added the extra word
and come up with "whole nine yards" is a near certainty.

This is a really obscure hearing. It's not like it was front-page news and
widely quoted. I doubt anyone was even in attendance other than the
principals to hear and pick up the phrase.

If it were to have given rise to the phrase, we would expect to see it
repeated by the senators in other committee hearings, to be repeated in
naval reports about shipyard production, etc. No such usages are known to
exist. The senators do not even pick up the phrase in the same hearing. Land
was reasonably high-profile--if he had been fond of using the phrase it is
likely we would know this by now.

And the use here is absolutely literal and straightforward. The admiral does
not go on and use the phrase metaphorically. He does not use it whimsically.
The rest of his testimony is devoid of slang.


-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of
Stephen Goranson
Sent: Wednesday, July 11, 2007 3:40 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: "the whole nine yards" 1942

Admiral Emory Scott Land was appointed by FDR soon after the Pearl
Harbor attack to oversee a massive increase in U.S. shipbuilding. In his
long
life (1879-1971) Land was, among other things, a naval architect and
administrator, a submarine builder, a pilot and president of the Air
Transport
Association of America, and a director and consultant to General Dynamics, a
defense contractor and a supplier to NASA (where a 1964 usage of "the whole
nine yards" was recently announced). The Library of Congress published in
1958
a "Register of His Papers" deposited there. Land was on the cover of Time
magazine on March 31, 1941, before Pearl Harbor and before his April, 1942
Senate testimony in which he spoke the words "the whole nine yards."

Three of the options regarding those latter words, ending a sentence or
list, as they often do, are the following: (1) the words are a coincidental
collocation, having nothing whatever to do with the later popular quotation;
(2) he was quoting popular words; and (3) the words gave rise to the saying.

(1) These words, despite many and sustained searches, have not been
found (to my knowledge) earlier than 1942. So they are a fairly rare
combination
of words. All other (known) uses of these words appear to be related to one
another. Note that these words appear in Defense appropriation hearings, in
the
U.S. Senate, where they would reappear, though years later, at least
possibly
sustained in memory there by slang oral tradition. Recall that many, for
some
reason, insist that the phrase goes back to World War II times.

(2) In context, the dialog appears as quite serious business and devoid of
word-play or double meanings. And, again, the phrase is not (yet) known
beforw
1942, to be quoted, anyway. Note that the huge increase in shipbuilding,
including at new yards set up by Kaiser on the west coast, was quite an
ambitious goal, and to achieve that goal at "the whole nine yards" would be
a
remarkable achievement, seen as urgent to the war effort.

(3) The words in 1942 are a straightforward response to a question.
They do not seem to be intended to be artful, but they were emphatic, and
spoken
by a much-respected authority. They report that if several items are
achieved,
the ensemble whould require the full compliment of extraordinary
contributions
by "the whole nine yards." This sets up the pattern: item, item, item--the
whole nine yards. Even by speakers, later, who were unaware what type of
"yards" were originally intended. I suggest that the possibility that April
23,
1942 was the birth of "the whole nine yards" is well worth considering and
testing by further research.

Stephen Goranson

Quoting Stephen Goranson <goranson at DUKE.EDU>:

> Investigation of the National Defense Program: Hearings Before a Special
> Committee Investigating the National Defense Program, By United
> States Congress.
> Senate. Special Committee Investigating the National Defense Program,
> part 12,
> U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington,1942, page 5192.
> (Google Books provided the title and page number but gave no text;
WorldCat
> indicated the page was in pt. 12; the rest is from the paper publication.)
>
> Senators and Admirals on Thursday April 23, 1942 were discussing a rapid
> increase in construction of Liberty ships. Senator Harry S. Truman was
> chairman.
>
> [page 5191]
> ....
> Senator [Harold H.] BURTON....therefore you see a possibility of actually
> increasing the
> percentage of gain by 50 percent in these yards as a whole.
> Admiral [Howard L.] VICKERY. In the yards as a whole.
> Senator BURTON. And the yards that are below 12 percent now there
> would be more
> than a 50-percent gain because they are below that average at this time?
> [page 5292]
> Admiral VICKERY. Yes, sir.
> Senator BURTON. So that you have involved here a tremendous expansion in
> production, and you are shooting for a 50-percent increase or more than a
> 50-percent increase in seven out of nine plants.
> Admiral VICKERY. That is right, and they have got to make that to hit the
> schedules.
> Admiral [Emory S.] LAND. You have to increase from 7.72 to 12 for the
> average at
> the bottom of that fifth column, for the whole nine yards.
> Senator BURTON. That is pretty nearly twice.
> Admiral VICKERY. That is what we have got to do.
> Admiral LAND. That is what we are up against here, and they aren't up
against
> anything that the rest of the United States and all its armed forces are
up
> against.
> ....
>
> Stephen Goranson
> http://www.duke.edu/~goranson
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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

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