whole nine yards (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Shapiro, Fred]

Stephen, can you tell us whether the shipyards etymology was volunteered by the daughter without any prompting, or whether you mentioned it to her as a possibility?

Fred Shapiro



________________________________________
From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Mullins, Bill AMRDEC [Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL]
Sent: Wednesday, February 09, 2011 12:20 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: whole nine yards (UNCLASSIFIED)

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

Have the nine shipyards spoken of by Adm Land in 1942 ever been
identified?  Were there more of them by the end of the war?

If nine is an accurate count for only a short period of time in
mid-1942, and by the end of the war more plants had come on-line, then
it seems odd that media 15 years later would remember only "nine yards".

I'm not saying this is the case, but it seems to be an issue that would
have to be investigated and ruled out for Stephen's hypothesis to hold
true.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On
Behalf Of
> Stephen Goranson
> Sent: Wednesday, February 09, 2011 6:38 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: whole nine yards
>
>
> 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.
>
>
Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

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