"[T]he entire nine yards" [3/62]; possible a couple earlier ones

[Shapiro, Fred]

Congratulations to Bonnie on these important discoveries!  Based on internal evidence in the Google Books documents, there seems to be every reason to believe that the 1956 and 1957 dates are correct.

Fred Shapiro



________________________________________
From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] on behalf of Bonnie Taylor-Blake [b.taylorblake at GMAIL.COM]
Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2012 9:05 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: "[T]he entire nine yards" [3/62]; possible a couple earlier              ones

On Wed, Jul 25, 2012 at 7:59 PM, Baker, John <JBAKER at stradley.com> wrote:

> Yes, the 1956 and 1957 examples are clearly the modern use of the phrase, and the dates appear to check out, although it would be good to have these confirmed in print.  Maybe an email to Kentucky Afield?  Good work, Bonnie!

Thanks, John.  And thanks for the suggestion about emailing Kentucky
Afield.  I was going to write that office anyway to see if I could get
permission to post online a PDF of the page bearing the 1962 sighting,
so I'll tack on that request too.  The trick, I think, will be to
convince staff members there to drop everything they're doing at that
very moment to give us a handing in catching potentially elusive (or
non-existent) sightings from the 1950s.

-- Bonnie

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