# Ball of wax

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ball-of-wax/173379>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [May 6, 2003, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ball-of-wax/173379 "2003-05-06T13:12:24Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![WeRSauron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f19dbf/32.png) [@WeRSauron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WeRSauron)\
**Post date:** [May 6, 2003, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ball-of-wax/173379/1 "2003-05-06T13:12:24Z")

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What’s the origin of “that’s a whole other ball of way” or “that’s another ball of wax”? What does it mean?

WRS

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**Author:** ![WeRSauron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f19dbf/32.png) [@WeRSauron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WeRSauron)\
**Post date:** [May 6, 2003, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ball-of-wax/173379/2 "2003-05-06T13:13:35Z")

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Um, that should be “that’s a whole other ball of wax”.

WRS

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**Author:** ![Ice\_Wolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/dfb087/32.png) [@Ice\_Wolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ice_Wolf)\
**Post date:** [May 6, 2003, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ball-of-wax/173379/3 "2003-05-06T13:26:54Z")

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“The whole ball of wax” means the whole thing, everything wrapped up.

There are a number of theories out there as to origin. [Word Detective](http://www.word-detective.com/back-l.html#ballowax) says the jury’s still out, while there is a possibility [here:](http://www.quinion.com/words/qa/qa-who5.htm)

> [@](#):
>
> However, I did find one real clue, in a disintegrating paperback in my library—a science-fiction novel of 1954 by Shepherd Mead, who two years before had written How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. Called The Big Ball of Wax, it is a satire on big business and advertising in America and contains this line from the narrator, a market research man, about the story to come: “Well, why don’t we go back to the beginning and roll it all up, as the fellows say, into one big ball of wax?”, that is, put everything together to make a coherent and complete whole. This sounds too much like a fuller and less elliptical early version of the saying to be a coincidence.