[Ads-l] Major Discovery Relating to "Whole Nine Yards"

Mon Apr 27 23:11:27 UTC 2015

Below is a humorous verse published in 1895 that referred to a "poem
six yards long" about a violet. The poem was also a piece of violet
cloth six yards long. So the humor involved wordplay. This citation
was from the same newspaper as the 1902 citation I just posted.

Date: November 12, 1895
Newspaper: The Atlanta Constitution
Newspaper Location: Atlanta, Georgia
Article: Just from Georgia
Poem: A Flowery Tragedy
Quote Page 4, Column 6
Database: Newspapers.com

[Begin excerpt]
A Flowery Tragedy.

The poet found a violet
  Upon the frozen way.
Blue-eyed and bright it charmed his
   sight--
A memory of May.

He took the outcast to his breast--
  A little pearl of price;
And marveled much at finding such
  A tender flower in ice.

He wrote a poem six yards long:
  His wife--she laid it flat
By saying: "Dear, that violet
  Was cloth--from Sallie's hat!"
[End excerpt]

Garson

On Mon, Apr 27, 2015 at 6:27 PM, ADSGarson O'Toole
<adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       ADSGarson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Major Discovery Relating to "Whole Nine Yards"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Fascinating news; thanks for sharing it, Fred.
>
> Below is an example of "nine yards" used to reference a lengthy
> textual document in 1902. This use seems to be comparable to the one
> in the 1850 citation. The phrase is not in quotation marks. It seems
> to be comical.
>
> Date: May 7, 1902
> Newspaper: The Atlanta Constitution
> Newspaper Location: Atlanta, Georgia
> Article: (Untitled short news item)
> Quote Page 6, Column 4
> Database: Newspapers.com
>
> [Begin excerpt]
> The International Magazine of Bill-
> ville has out a prospectus nine yards
> long. The editor says the first number
> of the magazine "will be a gem." He
> is a trifle short on copy just now, as
> the favorable crop season has con-
> strained him to make hay while the sun
> shines.
> [End excerpt]
>
> This 1902 date is closer to the emergence of "whole six yards" and
> "whole nine yards", I think. It is very difficult to keep track of
> this complex topic. Perhaps someone could create a comprehensive
> article on this topic. If such an article exists I apologize for not
> knowing about it. Is the Wikipedia treatment accurate and up to date?
>
> Switching topics: Maybe Stephen or someone can create an article about
> the evolution of the lies and statistics saying. Is the Wikipedia
> treatment accurate and up to date?
>
> Perhaps a piece could be place in Comments on Etymology or another
> periodical? An electronic document with updates to record progress
> would be nice.
>
> Garson
>
> On Mon, Apr 27, 2015 at 5:11 PM, Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu> wrote:
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       "Shapiro, Fred" <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
>> Subject:      Major Discovery Relating to "Whole Nine Yards"
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> The phrase "the whole nine yards," which only a few years ago seemed to be =
>> a product of Vietnam-era military slang, continues to confound our ideas ab=
>> out its modernity.  I am writing this posting to report on what appears to =
>> be a major discovery about the idiom underlying "whole nine yards."  The di=
>> scovery was made, not by me, but by Richard Bucci of Brooklyn, N.Y., who is=
>>  an editor for the Mark Twain Project at University of California, Berkeley=
>> .
>>
>> What Mr. Bucci has found is a newspaper item in the Bowling Green (Missouri=
>> ) Democratic Banner, December 4, 1850, page 1.  The item is an article or l=
>> etter entitled "Third Epistle to Edwin" and written by W. K. Kennedy.  Kenn=
>> edy was Treasurer of the city of Louisiana, Missouri; "Edwin" was Edwin Dra=
>> per, a member of the Board of Council of that city.  Kennedy was having an =
>> intense feud with Draper and was responding to a communication by Draper da=
>> ted Sept. 20.  Kennedy's Dec. 4 epistle contained the following key passage=
>> s:
>>
>> SIR, -- Your last "nine yards" would be unworthy of notice, as it commences=
>>  with a falsehood and ends with a lie, was it not that you therein wish to =
>> create the impression on those that are unacquainted with the circumstances=
>> , that I had endeavored (had it not been for your shrewdness) to swindle th=
>> e treasury out of a portion of the revenue. ... I will not attempt to follo=
>> w you through your "nine yards" in all its serpentine windings, but confine=
>>  myself to one or two points more, and compare.
>>
>> "Nine yards" seems to be a term used by Kennedy to refer to a lengthy verba=
>> l account.  This exactly matches the idiomatic usage of "whole nine yards" =
>> and "whole six yards" in many of the earliest citations found by Bonnie Tay=
>> lor-Blake and myself from Indiana, Kentucky, and South Carolina newspapers =
>> in the 1907-1921 period.  The fact that Kennedy put the words in quotation =
>> marks points to the term being a colorful coinage or recent addition to the=
>>  language.  I think it likely that this is a surprisingly early precursor o=
>> f "the whole nine yards."  The theory of myself and Ms. Taylor-Blake that "=
>> whole six yards" may have been the original form, covered in the New York T=
>> imes on Dec. 29, 2012, now seems questionable.
>>
>> Even if Kennedy's "nine yards" is the same idiom as the later "whole nine y=
>> ards," it does not resolve the question of whether the term derived from ni=
>> ne yards being a standard length of cloth.  Mr. Bucci believes that "The or=
>> igins of 'the whole nine yards,' meaning a standard measure of cloth, appea=
>> rs to arise from the amount of cloth that could be woven in a day by a sing=
>> le person on a primitive hand-loom."  In my own view, there is no strong ev=
>> idence for that theory or similar cloth-related derivations (although cloth=
>>  theories are now far more plausible than the ever-popular concrete-truck-c=
>> apacity and World-War-II-aircraft-machine-gun-ammunition-belt theories).  A=
>> s I have written before, "Perhaps the reference was never a specific length=
>>  of a specific thing, but only a colorful locution vaguely signifying somet=
>> hing very long."
>>
>> Bonnie Taylor-Blake has been the trailblazer of "whole nine yards" scholars=
>> hip, and I hope that she will post her own analyses of the new discovery.
>>
>> Fred Shapiro
>> Editor
>> YALE BOOK OF QUOTATIONS (Yale University Press)
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>
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