First Reactions to Bonnie Taylor-Blake's Latest "Whole Nine Yards" Discoveries

[Bonnie Taylor-Blake]

On Fri, Sep 6, 2013 at 4:21 PM, Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu> wrote:

> 3.  As Bonnie probably already saw, Newspaperarchive also has a possible 19=
> 16 occurrence of "whole nine yards" from the Greensburg Weekly Democrat, Ma=
> rch 23, 1916.  This too is in Indiana.

Well, excited as I was earlier today (how silly), I could barely type
my message to the group, so it's no wonder I didn't see that
Greensburg sighting, Fred. When you have a moment, would you sent it
on to us?

A few moments ago I sent a message to Ron Rhody, who had been
responsible for the previous earliest sightings (1956, 1967) of "the
whole nine yards."  Ron had said that the expression was something he
grew up with (1930s), something everyone around him used, and
something everyone around him understood.  I see these Indiana usages
from 100 years ago as confirmatory of Ron's recollection.

-- Bonnie

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