Additional Information on "The Whole Six Yards"

[Bonnie Taylor-Blake]

On Sat, Sep 8, 2012 at 10:50 AM, Bonnie Taylor-Blake
<b.taylorblake at gmail.com> wrote:

> Maybe so, but Ron Rhody, born in northern Kentucky in 1932, told me
> that "the whole nine yards" was an expression he grew up with and
> heard everyone use, which suggests a pre-WWII occurrence.
>
> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind1208A&L=ADS-L&P=R4219&I=-3&d=No+Match%3BMatch%3BMatches

For what it's worth, I'll mention that Ron's father was in the
newspaper business.  I believe he was the editor (or similar) at a
northern-Kentucky newspaper (a paper in Frankfort)?  I only mention
this in case we're looking at a newspaper-specific expression, tied
to, perhaps, yards of newsprint or similar.  That seems unlikely to me
too and I don't really like that theory, but I'll just throw that out
there along with everything else.  (Perhaps the newspaper connection
crept into my head because, duh, we're seeing "the whole six yards" in
old small-town newspapers.)

-- Bonnie

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