Whole Nine Yards update(1964)?

Bonnie Taylor-Blake taylor-blake at NC.RR.COM
Sat Jun 23 20:12:30 UTC 2007


Barry had written,

> > Google Books has these cites, some (perhaps all) dubious:
> > ...
> > _Technical Review - The Society of Experimental Test Pilots
> > - Page 246_=20 (http://books.google.com/bo
> > oks?id=3D-zgOAAAAMAAJ&q=3D"whole+nine+yards"+date:1900-1970&dq
> =3D"whole+nine=
> > +yards"+date:1900-1970&num=3D100&ie=3DISO-8859-1)=20
> > by  Society of Experimental Test Pilots - 1957 These results
> > are  all going into a common report when the whole nine
> > yards=20 gets=20 wrapped  up and, in fact, there will be no
> > separate spin evaluation of the =20 ...


As Bill Mullins has pointed out, that particular example dates from sometime
after the summer of 1971.

But Barry's on the right track in looking at the *Technical Review* of the
Society of Experimental Test Pilots.

For what it's worth, Google Books also shows a related form in a SETP volume
published in the last quarter of 1966, making this appearance roughly
contemporaneous with the publication of _Doom Pussy_, though not as old as
Sam's find from 1964:

------------------------------------

"Self-sealing tanks were touched on this morning.  Armor plating around
vital areas can help protect sub-systems.  Certainly emergency mechanical
linkage for control systems is an item we are all interested in.  Then
two-engines, two pilots, and the rest, the nine yards of things that we have
really all been aware of for a long time and should pay a lot more"
[remainder illegible]

[Vol. 8, No. 2, p. 176; <http://tinyurl.com/28kgq2>]

------------------------------------

These "technical reviews" seem to be the published proceedings of SETP
symposia; Vol. 8, No. 2 contains documents relating to the 10th SETP
Symposium, held in September, 1966.

It looks to me that this particular (frustratingly limited) snippet derives
from a transcript of some sort, so it's tough to know whether "the nine
yards of things" is actually what the (unknown) speaker uttered or whether
the original phrase, whatever it may have been, was mis-transcribed as "the
nine yards of things."

-- Bonnie

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