The term the whole nine yards does not originate from the amount of fabric used to make certain clothes, or the cloth that covers a casket. It actually originates from WWII piolets. One string of bullets was nine yards long, if the piolet shot all the shells, it was said he shot “the whole nine yards”. I saw this on an old movie on the history channel, but the name of the film, I do not know.
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Please include a link to Cecil’s column if it’s on the straight dope web site.
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Cecil’s column can be found on-line at this link:
What’s the origin of “the whole nine yards”?
The column (including Slug Signorino’s illustration) can also be found on pages 252-257 of Cecil Adams’ book “More of the Straight Dope”.
Jeff McH, you may be interested in reading other discussions on this surprisingly controversial topic in this same forum (in which you will see that your hypothesis is discussed):
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