[Ads-l] "The whole ten yards" (Oklahoma, 1930)

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

Another excellent addition to your remarkable body of work on this
popular family of phrases with an enigmatic provenance. Thanks for
sharing, Bonnie.

Garson

On Tue, Jun 21, 2022 at 7:09 AM Bonnie Taylor-Blake
<b.taylorblake at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> This doesn't add much to our understanding of "the whole nine yards," but
> it does reveal that folks in Oklahoma were familiar with the larger idiom
> by 1930. Here, the use of "give the 'whole ten yards'" seems to imply "not
> holding back." (I was going to say "giving it one's all," but I don't think
> that quite fits in this context.) I assume the newspaper writer quotes the
> candidate when offering "whole ten yards" and "without fear or favor," but
> I suppose it's possible that these are the writer's uses, setting off
> familiar phrases with quotation marks.
>
> ---------------------------------
>
> Because of his outspoken condemnation of many practices of the state
> administration as well as other candidates for the governorship, "Alfalfa
> Bill" is one of the "hot spots" in the present campaign. The fact that he
> is suggesting some very revolutionary ideas in the conduct of the state in
> the event of his election has also been the subject for much discourse in
> the present campaign.
>
> In his Cherokee speech he promises to give the "whole ten yards" as he sees
> it "without fear or favor."
>
> [From "Bill Murray to Speak Here 9th; Candidate for Governor Will 'Tell It
> to the Voters' in Courtroom," The Cherokee (Oklahoma) Republican, 4 July
> 1930, p. 1. Murray went on to win this race, by the way:
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_H._Murray. -- Bonnie)
>
> ---------------------------------
>
> It's difficult to know whether a "ten yards" form was a thing (joining the
> other-numbered "whole six yards"), or whether this was simply a play on
> words (offering even more than "the whole nine yards"), or whether Murray
> (or the newspaper writer) just got the better-known "nine yards" version
> wrong. But the "whole ten yards" started showing up with more frequency in
> newspapers in the '70s. (There may be more than one reason for that.) "The
> whole seven yards" also emerged in the '70s and has more frequently
> appeared in print, at least in the 20th century, than its ten-yard cousin.
> It's possible that both the "ten" and "seven" variants circulated orally
> before the '70s, but were seldom captured in print.
>
> It would've been nice to see the full text showing Murray's use of the
> idiom (if it's his), but I'll note that the newspaper writer at least tacks
> on "give," which parallels how folks had sometimes used "the whole nine
> yards" and "the whole six yards" before 1930.
>
> -- Bonnie
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org