More on "The Whole Six Yards"

Shapiro, Fred fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU
Sat Sep 8 13:02:15 UTC 2012


OK, I think I've got some confirmation that Bonnie's discovery of "the whole six yards" is a very significant one.  Here is a 1912 article that seems to use "the whole six yards" in the sense of "the exhaustive version," similarly to later usage of "the whole nine yards."  Interestingly, it is from Kentucky, the locus of the earliest known citations (also found by Bonnie) of "the whole nine yards."

1912 _Mount Vernon (KY) Signal_ 17 May 1 (Chronicling America)  But there is one thing sure, we dems would never have known that there was such crookedness in the Republican party if Ted and Taft had not got crossed at each other.  Just wait boys until the fix gets to a fever heat and they will tell the whole six yards.

Fred Shapiro

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



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