whole nine yards

Wed Feb 9 12:38:12 UTC 2011

I pass along a small amount of additional information, and some comments, in hope someone will find more data.
The daughter of Robert E. Wegner, author of the 1962 usage of "the whole nine yards," asked her Father some additional questions, kindly, at my request. And this is the practical end of that route, in my opinion, as asking yet more would be inconsiderate--unless she volunteers some unexpected find later.
He does not recall using the phrase in his other writing (I was fishing for either an earlier attestation, or one with additional context).
The part in the story about hearing the phrase from a brush salesman he thinks is fiction (though the story narrator is largely based on R.E.W., including being  left-handed, married, a parent, college professor and writer).
He was never in the military.
He does not recall hearing the phrase via TV, movies, radio, newsreel, nor reading it, but thinks he heard it in conversation.

Wegner previously said he thought the nine yards were World War II shipyards. And he used it "to express extravagance, or an all-out effort." In effect, a big production, large ensemble of things. In his case, in a domestic setting.
The later 1962 writer, Gale F. Linster (about whom perhaps Bonnie Taylor-Blake may tell us more), wrote a letter about auto "extra cost equipment" (e.g., automatic transmission) as "all nine yards of goodies." The goodies being extra cost options, that is, real stuff, as I read it, rather than a mere list of stuff.
The 1964 journalist Trumbull (rather than Trumbell) claimed it as NASA slang. I don't doubt that it was used in NASA, but that does not mean it originated there. Another "how to talk rocket" slang example he gave was "brain bucket" for crash helmet--but that slang term predates NASA (e.g., LIFE Sep 26, 1955). When the journalist said what it "means" we needn't take that declaration as wholly reliable. Though he says it is used of "any project" I suspect it only fit some seen as, or presented as, big. "Item by item report" could be read as suggesting length (if you allow pages somehow adding to 9 yds.), but it  also can  be read as suggesting detailed completeness, a full set, an all-out endeavor.
When we read in 1965 the "[Viet] Cong troops were extremely well outfitted with steel helmets, boots--'the whole nine yards of uniform" I do not think yards of cloth are in play. In fact, this quote in effect  agrues against length interpretation.
Also 1965; "We got the whole nine yards of [air combat] training. Including a side trip to Panama for jungle survival." Training sessions, not list.
Also 1965: "take over the whole 9 yards [of a Holiday Inn]" All the rooms, not a list.
1967: ..."Charlie poured everything at us...flak, SAMS, Migs, the whole nine yards, all at the same time." Here I suggest that they did not give 'em a list.
Some later tradents, though, did seek  to (re)interpret the yards as linear measure (e.g., perhaps Elaine Shepard in one of 3 uses, the one less reliant on quoting, reporting on what Smash said.).
Hypothesis: the actual WW II nine shipyards for Liberty Ships and their unprecedented production were recalled in some US media (not necessarily books or newspapers), post-Sputnik, in a call to a similar can-do push for aerospace production. and the phrase became applied in other settings as well, though aerospace tradents (including government contractors) were significant in the first decade and more.

Stephen Goranson
http://www.duke.edu/~goranson

________________________________________
From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Stephen Goranson [goranson at DUKE.EDU]
Sent: Monday, January 31, 2011 10:34 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: [ADS-L] whole nine yards

I can pass along some new information, thanks to Bonnie Taylor-Blake, and add a few comments, not claiming the last word on the subject, but hoping to get a bit closer to solution.

Many months ago I wrote (snail mail) to Robert Wegner, author of the 1962 usage of "the whole nine yards," but received no reply. Recently I emailed a colleague of his at Alma College, where he is an emeritus prof, and it was forwarded to his daughter. A poster at The Straight Dope Message Board, Wendell Wagner, also emailed her. She replied to him, apparently thinking my mails were from him too, as she referred to the snail mail and to a link I provided in email (to Ben Zimmer's Word Routes treatment), which don't apply to the Straight Dope correspondent. I have emailed her again, as the poster suggested she not be bombarded with requests, and he bowed out. So far, though she reports her Father's memory as notably diminished, she said that he said that the nine yards refers to navy shipyards in World War II. Of course memory is not always reliable. But this testimony leads me to reintroduce the 1942 quote--and possible related contemporary uses--as potentially the literal s!
  ource of the figurative meaning.

In Bonnie's 1962 Car Life find Gale Linster wrote of auto options as nine yards of "goodies"; Wegner wrote of a set of burdensome things. Michigan's Voices, where Wegner's 1962 story appeared, I may recall, hosted early opponents of US involvement in Vietnam, more on the side of concern with (Eisenhower's) "military-industrial complex" as a possibly negative thing.

 I think the nine yards refers to everything in a big production, not just any project, and not to a list nine linear yards long. On count or mass in the 1942 quote see Clai Rice and Laurence Horn in ads-l archives. Wegner reportedly said he always used it "to express extravagance, or an all-out effort." I suspect that the Liberty Ships production was recalled in the post-Sputnik and race-to-the-moon era, with focus moved from ships to aerospace. Perhaps in some popular US-wide medium, hence brush salesman, teenagers, as well as "as the airmen say." Admiral Land (in charge of the Liberty Ships nine yards and the 1942 source) became head of an air transport association and consultant to General Dynamics, a defense contractor. And Henry Kaiser (new shipbuilder) campaigned in public (in newspapers, Life Magazine etc.) to convert the shipyards to airplane production. Disney released a movie in 1943: Victory Through Air Power (now on youtube); there was also a book with the same !
  argument. Such a trajectory from ships to aerospace could help explain the persistent sense many have that the phrase relates to WW II  but is attested later, in a related, but advanced, government contracting setting.

Stephen Goranson
http://www.duke.edu/~goranson

PS. The 1964 reporter, once given as Stephen Trumbell, is more often credited as Trumbull.

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