Additional Information on "The Whole Six Yards"

[Victor Steinbok]

No one has asked the question, so, I guess, I will. Would anyone
undertake the task of computing the metric total of all the newsprint
column-inch space (sans advertising -- or, perhaps, with) of that paper?
A ballpark estimate, without seeing the paper, gives me --

Length of page 1.5-2 ft
columns 3/page
number of pages 4

Total 18-24 ft or 6-8 yards. This seems to be too close to ignore.

     VS-)

On 9/8/2012 11:11 AM, Bonnie Taylor-Blake wrote:
> 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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