"the whole nine yards" 1942

[Stephen Goranson]

Passing along information and observations:

I now have the whole 1969 article from Graphic Science, "Looking Around" by Tram
Pritchard, which certainly has to do with defense contracting. Here's the
complete sentence, only partly available on Google Books, speaking of MIL
Standard on Specification Preparation, MIL STD-490: "If I understand correctly
what it intends regarding Process Specifications, it invokes the entire nine
yards to create a document that is self-sufficient in both what is needed and
how to do it."

Bonnie's quite nice 1966 find with "Then two-engines, two pilots, and the rest,
thenine yards of things that we have really all been aware of for a long time
and should pay a lot more attention to..." is also about defense contracting.
(I asked ILL to try to complete that text.)

Sam's welcome 1964 find with "'Give 'em the whole nine yards'" means an
item-by-item report on any project" appears to involve defense contracting.

The 1942 "for the whole nine yards," reporting by the oft-quoted Admiral Land
speaking to the most powerful committee in Congress is also in on defense
contracting. Bruce Catton: "...The Truman Committee of the Senate...enjoyed more
prestige than all other congressional committees put together, and ... had
earned it by being eminently fair, intelligent, and aggressive." (p. 145 in The
Military-Industrial Complex, C.W. Pursell ed. 1972, reprinting from Catton's The
War Lords of Washington, 1948.)

An autobiography: Emory Scott Land, Winning the War with ships; Land, Sea and
Air--Mostly Land (NY, 1958). His papers are at the Library of Congress.

A history: Ships for Victory: A History of Shipbuilding under the U.S. Maritime
Comission in World War II, F.C. Lane (The Johns Hopkins Press, 1951). The first
sentence quotes Adm. Land.

I note that Gary Martin a phrasefinder has 9properly) dropped the google-1954
Plain Anthropologist with nine yards and nine stages variant; the snippet
refers , APA style, to 1990 1nd 1991 articles. But his essay still metions
1954. His 1961 suggestion is interesting, though not persuasive (but not,
therefore, say, "silliness"): would a 27 foot plus long jump record have called
the phrase into headlines? Well, it was measured in feet and inches, not yards.
And our "yards" need not be linear measure ones (he lists shipyards among his
rejected possibilities). And how widespread might it have been then? Plus, for
what it's worth, "full nine yards" appears, non-idiomatically, in football
stories; "whole nine yards" perhaps not in early cases.

There is a Liberty ship memorial. Perhaps they have relevant text.

Had "Smash" been a test pilot before Vietnam?

"Dressed to the nines" or "nine muses" et sim. suggested parallels do not
account for "yards."

Possible sources for tradents of the phrase: newsreels, radio, later TV (e.g.,
remember Victory at Sea with Richard Rogers' music?), not-yet-scanned text,
comic books, movies....

Variations (mostly late ones) besides those mentioned above (full, entire, nine
yards of things): go the full yard Pentagonese go the nine yards, all the nine
yards. "for the whole nine yards" is frequent.

Here (from Lane op.cit. p51) are the nine yards:

South Portland, Me. the Todd-Bath Iron Shipbuilding Corp.
Baltimore, Md. Bethlehem-Fairfield Yard
Wilmington, N.C.--North Carolina Shipbuilding Co.
Mobile, Ala.--Alabama Dry Dock and Shipbuilding Co.
New Orleans, La.--Delta Shipbuilding Co.
Houston, Texas--Houston Shipbuilding Corp.
Los Angeles (Terminal Island), Cal-- California Shipbuilding Corp.
Richmond, Cal--Todd-California shipbuilding Corp.
Portland, Oregon-- Oregon Shipbuilding Corp.

Stephen Goranson
for etymology of "Essenes":
http://www.duke.edu/~goranson

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