"The Whole Six Yards" (UNCLASSIFIED)

Tue Sep 11 10:52:44 UTC 2012

I agree that the mentions of 6 and 9 yard saris (and 9 yard kilts) are likely not related to the Americanism. (And the truck sizes I mentioned merely as coincidental, also not related, cases.)

And I wondered the same thing that you did, Bill, about the more recent 6 yard uses you noted (especially the third one that, in a longer passage, mentions Elvis--a hint of southern good ol' boy influence?); they may possibly be remnants, vestiges, of the first stage of a (hypothetical) two stage development. Whole six yards; then whole nine yards. Offhand I think there might be more stray six yards sayings than some other numbers.

These 1912, 1912, 1921, 1956, 1957, and 1962 important new finds pretty much exclude many proposed origins (a long list, maybe including list). And they raise new questions. The gap between 1921 and 1956 is fairly large, though that may possibly be reduced before long.

On the hypothesis that whole six yards--for some reason (yes, someone may say: for no reason)--changed, for most tradents of the phrase, into the whole nine yards, we can ask (or at least I will ask) what might have caused the start of the proposed second stage. Proponents of the "mystical number" proposal (if any remain, above zero) might have difficulty saying it was mystical nine, or six, whatever. Did anything that we know about happen in the US with nine yards between 1921 and 1956? .... ***If*** there was a two stage development.

The proposed football origin may have been weakened (despite an August "gut feeling" in favor of it in a source that inaccurately described the 1942 and ff uses). And the elsewhere multiply proposed sarcastic football variant seems not to fit. The cases we have appear to report, e.g., a whole account (the whole newly-uncovered story of political corruption, e.g., in one 1912 use). In other words, if someone said she made a big Thanksgiving dinner--turkey, stuffing, gravy, cranberry sauce, pies, etc.--she's not kidding, not sarcastic. When the KY PR guy in 1956 described fishing contests and prizes, he wasn't belittling these, I think.

The 1912, 1912, and 1921 uses can, perhaps, provisionally, be characterized as reports from out of town. So, if I may merely ask a question--perhaps merely a heuristic one--might six yards have something to do with telegraph tape, or teletype or telephone?

Stephen Goranson
www.duke.edu/~goranson

________________________________________
From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] on behalf of Mullins, Bill AMRDEC [Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL]
Sent: Monday, September 10, 2012 4:50 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: [ADS-L] "The Whole Six Yards" (UNCLASSIFIED)

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
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I also noticed the Indian occurrences of "whole six yards"; they nearly
invariably referred to the amount of cloth necessary to wrap a sari
around a woman.  In fact, it almost seemed like "whole six yards" was
another way of referring to a sari.

(And from this I conclude that it is a modern name for a sari that plays
off "whole nine yards", and is almost certainly unrelated to the early
"whole six yards".  But, as Dennis Miller says, I could be wrong.)

> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On
Behalf Of
> Shapiro, Fred
> Sent: Monday, September 10, 2012 3:43 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: "The Whole Six Yards" (UNCLASSIFIED)
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Shapiro, Fred" <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: "The Whole Six Yards" (UNCLASSIFIED)
>
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> -
>
> In searching for early examples of "the whole six yards," I have seen
that it
> appears occasionally in more recent times, particularly in India.
These are
> probably re-coinages playing on "the whole nine yards," but maybe some
of the
> usages of "whole six yards" are survivals of the old usage of "whole
six
> yards" that seems to have preceded "the whole nine yards."
>
> 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: Monday, September 10, 2012 3:42 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: "The Whole Six Yards" (UNCLASSIFIED)
>
> Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
> Caveats: NONE
>
> If I had seen the following before the recent discussion, I'd have
simply
> thought they were mistakes.  Now, I'm not so sure.
>
>
> [Lafayette GA] _Walker County Messenger_ 25 Apr 1990 p 4A col 4
[Google News
> Archive]
>
> "That will be an impossibility until the whole "six-yards" is
resolved."
>
>
>
> [Florence AL] _TimesDaily_ 26 Apr 1990 p. 8A col 6 [Google News
Archive]
>
> " "We had to go the whole six yards on this case," Plott said."
>
>
> Elaine Dundy _Elvis and Gladys_   Jackson, MS: University Press of
> Mississippi, 2004  p. 93 [Google Books]
>
> " "We had them all," says Charlie Boren, "the whole six yards." "
> [referring to the many country bands that had appeared on a radio
station]
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