question, Fred Re: [ADS-L] "What goes around, comes around" (1962 by Paul Crump)

[Stephen Goranson]

Quoting Fred Shapiro <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>:

> On Tue, 24 Jul 2007, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote:
>
>> The Yale Book of Quotations has this on pg. 527, Modern Proverbs #37, "What
>> goes around, comes around," by Malcolm Braly, _On the Yard_ (1967).
>
> Very nice antedating, Barry!  Even with all its faults, Google Books seems
> worth checking, although for "whole nine yards" it seems only to lead to
> silliness.

Fred and list,

May I ask, are you saying that you consider to be silliness my proposal that
when Admiral Land in 1942 spoke "for the whole nine yards," he provided the
literal basis for the metaphorical usage? I would be interested in feedback
from others also.

Stephen Goranson

PS. LA Times 2 Jan 1941: The Miracle of Ships. "Nothing less than a shipbuilding
miracle will satisfy me."--Admiral Emory S. Land, chairman United States
Maritime Commission. Los Angeles and Long Beach, starting from scratch [and
working 24/7], have gone "all out" to perform that miracle...

Defence contracting seems to me a plausible setting for the origin, perhaps more
so than limiting to NASA or Air Force (or Vietnam).
Admiral Land testified on April 23; FDR was asked about Land's testimony,
quoted, at a press confrence the very next day. Henry Kaiser, who never built a
ship before, was part of the project. Kaiser wanted to build airplanes too, but
for lack of steel allotment, was involved with H. Hughes who built the wooden
"spruce goose."
I have some ideas where to look further (and a couple ILL requests out), and
welcome, on or off list, suggestions where to look. Counsel of despair seems
less useful to me.

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