Expressions with Number Variation

[Ben Zimmer]

On Thu, Sep 13, 2012 at 5:00 PM, Shapiro, Fred wrote:
>
> In connection with the discovery that the original formulation of "the
> whole nine yards" may well have been "the whole six yards," Dave Wilton has
> pointed out that "there are many examples of phrases with numbers that went
> through multiple versions with different numerical values before settling on
> the one that became canonical (e.g., 'cloud nine')."  Can Dave or anyone
> else give me other examples of this kind of number variation?

The 600/800/900-pound gorilla comes to mind.

--bgz

--
Ben Zimmer
http://benzimmer.com/

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