Why does the phrase to go ‘the whole nine yards’ mean
to carry some act to full completion, with a sense that
it is accomplished without stopping and at full speed?
It may seem like the phrase has something to do with
team sports. Do the nine yards represent distance won
or lost on a football field? Although the expression is
popular among sports fans, the origin lies elsewhere.
One theory says the expression came from the cement
delivery industry, where a rotating mixer truck carries
nine cubic yards of cement. To discharge the whole nine
yards would be to fully complete the task.
Another theory describes the space between the inner
and outer walls of a prison, which was nine yards
wide. To go the whole nine yards was to escape
entirely.
The most popular theory refers to World War II war
planes, which carried machine gun ammunition belts 27
feet (nine yards) long. To discharge the whole nine
yards was to fully empty the belt.
The first of these is included in the Cecil’s column, the second I have never seen elsewhere, and the third is the only explanation I had ever seen before reading the item above and finding Cecil’s column. Unfortunately, no evidence to support any of the theories is given, nor is there any early usage citation. Does anyone know if the expression was used before WWII, or how long a machine gun ammunition belt for a WWII plane really was?
This topic has been reviewed numerous times before – click here (may take a while to display) for a list of nine earlier threads in “Comments on Cecil’s Columns” on this topic which you can review. From the earlier threads, no one seems to have seen the expression before the 1960s, which makes it doubtful that it dates back to WW2. (One small warning – because this topic has come up so many times, some of the earlier threads degenerated pretty quickly to silliness, so many of the comments were intended as jokes).
Thank you, whitetho. I suppose that it is a sign of my newbie-ness that, having found a column of Cecil’s which included reader comments, I did not realize that there might be more reader comments which were not included. (Now that I have seen some of those reader comments, I can see why some of them were not included. )
whitetho, I have taken the liberty to C&P the threads found in your search into my post. A search takes up significant server resources. I would ask posters not to post links to a search, but instead to post the threads found as a result of that serach.
At the time, I should have noted that the search I set up was limited to only seaching titles, and restricted to only the Comments on Cecil’s columns, in order to keep the resource usage to the bare minimum.
Yes whitetho, but you’re still linking to a search, which takes more system resources than linking to the search results, which is what everyone wants, anyway. (Well, I should say, the results are the important part. Can’t say as to whether anyone wants them. ;)) Me, I would never have thought of linking the search, anyway, and would automatically have used the results.
I hate to make demands of The Master, but wouldn’t it be nice if Cecil were to update the online column with some mention of the ‘ammunition belt theory’? It seems like a lot of people post that one after seeing the column, since it’s the one not described by Cecil.
If he were to put it in there, telling everyone that no mention of the phrase seems to appear in print until the Sixties, them maybe we wouldn’t get posts on the column unless someone actually had an early cite of the idiom’s use.
By the way, I really want to praise Doubting Robert here. It seems that most who start threads on this topic come in sure that they’ve found something new, and that their theory is correct. You, sir, stated that you’d found some things Cecil hadn’t mentioned, but (and here’s the good part) that “Unfortunately, no evidence to support any of the theories is given, nor is there any early usage citation.” Bravo for your scepticism!
I’ve been told that 9 yards of fabric goes into making a real Scottish Highland kilt. More modern ones seem to be made of 6 yards, but the older ones wrapped around the chest and the leftover end was draped over the shoulder.
The great-kilt, or bratach, appears to have been estimated by contemporary writers at anywhere from four to eight yards. Bearing in mind that the bratach was pleated and belted lengthwise around the waist, nine yards seems unlikely for all but the largest of men
That’s a word I haven’t run across before, could you tell me where you found it? Is it a Scottish Gaelic word?
I just called my husband and he thinks it means “flag” but he isn’t sure if it’s Irish or Scottish Gaelic or both. He didn’t have a Gaelic dictionary with him.
I also wonder if, at some time in the past, the yard (in fabric terms) was not 36 inches but perhaps shorter. The maximum width of fabric in those days seemed to 25 or 30 inches, unlike wools today that are usually 54 inches wide.
My apologies; that should have been brat, not bratach. The loom-width of antiquity does indeed appear to be around 30 inches; two such widths were sewn together for the likes of what ought to be called a belted plaid.
There’s no point in talking about “how long a yard was” in 1250; fabric was measured in ells. The Scots ell was about 37 inches.
I was trying to think of the word “ell”. I mistakenly thought the ell was narrower. A good source for information on ancient weaving techniques is a book called “Women’s Work” which makes a good case for weaving to have been the second most important activity in the ancient world, after food production.
Funny you should ask! (Hint: look at the bottom few paragraphs in the above link.)
My personal theory is that the original phrase was “hole nine yards” and referred to a golf course.
However, the English ell was 45 inches, and the Dutch ell was 27 inches.
(My personal interest in the ell was piqued when, in Tolkien’s The Two Towers, Sam measured the length of their elvish rope to be 30 ells, which Frodo said should be long enough to reach to the bottom of a cliff that he’d estimated to be 18 fathoms high.)
So, “written citations from the 1960s”… What is the earliest known of these citations? And perhaps more importantly, is the author still alive? If so, the obvious expedient would be to ask him. Certainly, he might not remember where he got the phrase, but it’s worth a try.
It occurs to me that the pattern of early citations might also give some indication as to the source. If the first few were confined to a small geographic area, and then expanded outward, we might suppose that the phrase had its origins in that region. On the other hand, if the first few instances are scattered across the nation or globe, that might be an indication that the expression had been around for a while, and had been travelling via word of mouth.
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