question on "the nine yards of blank paper" 1917

[Bonnie Taylor-Blake]

I think your find is interesting, Stephen, and at least suggests "the
nine yards of" as a reference to "a lot" may have been in use at the
time.

Or have I rather densely missed that you might be attracted
specifically to "nine yards of [blank] paper" and the sense of
telling?

For what it's worth, I was excited once to find references to "nine
yards of train and plane tickets" (1940) and "nine yards of red tape"
(1956), but -- as I either realized on my own or, more likely, as Fred
pointed out to me -- it's really tough to know whether there was any
particular significance to "nine yards" and whether it may have
indicated a lurking meme.  In other words, were there people who truly
favored "nine yards [of]," perhaps over other measurements, to signify
"a lot" or were these just easy-to-find instances of
not-especially-preferred "nine yards of" usages by a couple newspaper
columnists?  These certainly didn't evoke the idiom itself, but they
did indicate "a lot."  Of course, your find may go further,
strengthening a use of "nine yards of" with reference to
information-sharing.

I don't know where, if anywhere, we'll end up with all this, but it's
nevertheless fun to think about and I enjoy the discussions that take
place here on the list.  Me, I'm a little stuck now until we find
other early usages of the idiom itself, but I'm sure they're coming.

-- Bonnie


On Thu, Sep 12, 2013 at 11:48 AM, Stephen Goranson <goranson at duke.edu> wrote:

> The following was published on April 1 (...the first), 1917 in the already-attested approximate geographic and time ranges, and in a relatively small newspaper, about baseball, concerning an attempt to "tell all...everything," and a facetious imaginary perhaps-pseudo-measurement...
>
> Anyway, what do y'all make of it as related, or not, to "the whole nine yards"?
>
> "Buck Campbell, the more or less baseball expert of The Winston-Salem Journal, took the trouble to pen Left Hook a long letter, in which he told all there was good to tell about the Twin-City. Buck wrote everything that was on his mind.--Asheville Citizen. You shouldn't be so hard on ol'/the/our [?--uncertain letters] Lefty. Remember there is a board of censors here. that is the reason you got the nine yards of blank paper."
>
> Winston-Salem Journal 04-01-1917 page 10, col. 7.


On Fri, Sep 13, 2013 at 10:15 AM, Stephen Goranson <goranson at duke.edu> wrote:

> The "uncertain letters" below apparently are "us," so it reads:
> "....You shouldn't be so hard on us Lefty. Remember there is a board of censors here. that is the reason you got the nine yards of blank paper."
>
> I think this text is probably related to "the whole nine yards."  ...and I only am estimated alone to tell thee?

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