# Evidence of 1942 usage of "Whole Nine Yards" **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [August 7, 2008, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-1942-usage-of-whole-nine-yards/459161 "2008-08-07T14:07:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Tammi\_Terrell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7ba0ec/32.png) [@Tammi\_Terrell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tammi_Terrell)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2008, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-1942-usage-of-whole-nine-yards/459161/21 "2008-08-09T14:12:34Z")
[QUOTE=DSYoungEsq] Someone please explain to me who in the world would say “the whole nine yards” when referring to “all nine yards?” That’s not a natural construction in any way. [/QUOTE] “I was sick the whole nine months of my pregnancy.” “He spent the whole nine innings in the dugout.” Eh, sounds like a pretty natural intensifier to me. – Tammi Terrell ---
**Author:** ![WoodenTaco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/45deac/32.png) [@WoodenTaco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WoodenTaco)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2008, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-1942-usage-of-whole-nine-yards/459161/22 "2008-08-09T16:38:45Z")
[QUOTE=Tammi Terrell] “I was sick the whole nine months of my pregnancy.” “He spent the whole nine innings in the dugout.” Eh, sounds like a pretty natural intensifier to me. – Tammi Terrell [/QUOTE] But those are durations of time, for which it is more natural, since they are more easily divisible. I don’t wash my whole nine shirts or send steel to the whole nine factories. ---
**Author:** ![Tammi\_Terrell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7ba0ec/32.png) [@Tammi\_Terrell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tammi_Terrell)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2008, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-1942-usage-of-whole-nine-yards/459161/23 "2008-08-09T17:33:25Z")
The whole nine factories completed their quota as expected. The whole nine shirts were ruined when he bleached them. He ran the whole 99 yards for a touchdown. The golfer completed the whole eighteen holes before noon. It took her all summer to read the whole six volumes. I ate the whole seven doughnuts that were left. I think the whole six divisions can reach Baghdad by nightfall. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2008, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-1942-usage-of-whole-nine-yards/459161/24 "2008-08-09T17:34:01Z")
It’s no more unnatural than using “whole” for a measure of length. I can’t think of anything that would be measured by yards which would naturally be specified by “the whole nine yards” rather than “all nine yards.” The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that the phrase sounds unnatural to me just by using “whole.” Perhaps in other people’s dialects “whole” is used differently, but to me the expression “the whole nine yards” is an odd way to say “all nine yards.” ---
**Author:** ![JimOfAllTrades](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@JimOfAllTrades](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JimOfAllTrades)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2008, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-1942-usage-of-whole-nine-yards/459161/25 "2008-08-09T17:54:19Z")
[QUOTE=DSYoungEsq] Someone please explain to me who in the world would say “the whole nine yards” when referring to “all nine yards?” That’s not a natural construction in any way. This leads one to suspect that the use of “the whole nine yards” in this context was a usage of a phrase with an established meaning, if only among the people involved at the time with the effort. [/QUOTE] In the conversation that precedes the use of “whole nine yards” there are a couple of references to production across the nine yards “as a whole” and production increases in seven of the nine yards. So the speakers were each trying to be specific which they were talking about: the seven plants or all nine. So when Admiral Land says “the whole nine yards” he may well have just been (consciously or unconsciously) echoing the usage “as a whole” in a slightly different way, even if it seemed a little awkward. ---
**Author:** ![Tammi\_Terrell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7ba0ec/32.png) [@Tammi\_Terrell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tammi_Terrell)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2008, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-1942-usage-of-whole-nine-yards/459161/26 "2008-08-09T18:17:28Z")
In fact, here’s what the OED has to say about this particular use of “whole” as an adjective. > [@](#): > > 1. a. The full or total amount of; all, all of (as distinguished from part of or some of). The prevailing current sense; only in attributive use, and now always preceding the [noun]. Formerly pleonastically with all, entire, etc.: also following its [noun]. > > (b) with numeral, as the whole three (the three whole), two whole (whole two). > > [Examples provided starting with ca. 1375.] I’m a speaker of American English, born and bred in central North Carolina, and the use of “the whole [number],” used in this manner, doesn’t sound odd to me, especially when emphasizing the entirety of the number of units. It’s something I’ve used myself, though I think I’d only use this in a casual, spoken context. In any event, I really can see someone using the “whole nine [ship]yards” when referring to what’s expected of production of the group [of nine]. It’s not at all artificial to these ears. That it may sound awkward to others doesn’t, I think, effectively demonstrate that it may have been already some weird phrase that was floating around the Navy by 1942. Nor does this line of reasoning demonstrate that this construction (“the whole [number]”) was so unique that it may have served as the point of origin for a later expression. – Tammi Terrell ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2008, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-1942-usage-of-whole-nine-yards/459161/27 "2008-08-09T19:18:17Z")
With respect, no one I know would say, “I ate the whole eight donuts.” Just doesn’t happen. But I think **RJKUgly** has hit upon a plausible explanation for the usage there of “whole.” ---
**Author:** ![WoodenTaco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/45deac/32.png) [@WoodenTaco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WoodenTaco)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2008, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-1942-usage-of-whole-nine-yards/459161/28 "2008-08-09T20:01:11Z")
I really agree with DSYoungEsq here. The majority of your examples, Tammi, sounded awkward to my ears. I guess that just goes to show that this is ultimately unresolvable. Awkward phrasings aren’t exactly unheard of in spoken testimony, though, so I think the burden is on those of us who think this was not a coincidental use of the words. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2008, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-1942-usage-of-whole-nine-yards/459161/29 "2008-08-10T04:30:00Z")
On the other hand, the OED’s “the whole three” sounds just as awkward but, apparently, enough people use it to get it into the dictionary. I guess it’s a local usage. ---
**Author:** ![Tammi\_Terrell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7ba0ec/32.png) [@Tammi\_Terrell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tammi_Terrell)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2008, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-1942-usage-of-whole-nine-yards/459161/30 "2008-08-10T06:02:14Z")
Here’s a smattering of appearances in the popular press of the same construction. These are roughly contemporaneous with Admiral Land’s use of “the whole nine yards.” > [@](#): > > [From Kyle Crichton’s “Contents Noted,” _Life_, August 1934, Pg. 41.] > > I am one of three persons in America who has ever completed Carlyle’s Frederick the Great and I think it is marvelous, the whole nine volumes and every word in them. > [@](#): > > [From “Avenue Stripped by Fuel Gatherers,” _The New York Times_, 6 October 1935, Pg. 37.] > > He sent one officer to the scene, but the patrolman was unable to watch the whole eight blocks. > [@](#): > > [From Arthur Krock’s “Roosevelt Puts Court on Trial before Nation,” _The New York Times_, 10 January 1937, Pg. 63.] > > Suppose seven or eight, or the whole nine, justices of the court hold the [Wagner] act invalid. What then? > [@](#): > > [From “Her Radio Bit Has Put Mae’s Film in Doubt,” _The Washington Post_, 22 December 1937, Pg. 18.] > > There was not a single off-color line or situation in the whole eight reels of “Holiday!” > [@](#): > > [From “Storm in Cabinet; Prague Leaders Said to Have Reserved All Essential Rights,” _The New York Times_, 6 September 1938, Pg. 15.] > > The party was to demand the Karlsbad eight points, the whole eight points and nothing but the eight points. > [@](#): > > [From “Intermediate Ships,” _The Chicago Daily Tribune_, 5 November 1939, Pg. 16.] > > Commerce raiders are always annoying. They have the whole seven seas to hide in, limited only by the necessity of getting fuel, which they often take from their prizes. > [@](#): > > [From “Army Nurse Quotas Filled at 3 Camps,” _The New York Times_, 24 February 1941, Pg. 9.] > > The War Department announced today that the February quota of 325 nurses to staff hospitals at Army camps at Fort Devens, Mass.; Indiantown Gap, Pa., and Camp Forrest, Tenn., had been reached and that the quotas of Army nurses for the whole nine corps areas would apparently be reached on the required dates. > [@](#): > > [From Lee Kanner’s “The Post Impressionist” column, _The Washington Post_, 4 December 1941, Pg. 18.] > > Mr. Brown knew the answer to this one, too, but he wasn’t going to be a hog and take the whole ten bucks > [@](#): > > [From “The Canadian Flag,” _The Lethbridge Herald_, 16 November 1945, Pg. 4.] > > Or what have we that is distinctive as applying to the whole nine provinces? So, despite the construction’s apparent clumsiness to some, it wouldn’t have been _that_ unusual for Admiral Land to use it, even if Burton and Vickery hadn’t just mentioned “the[se] yards as a whole.” (By the way, Burton’s and Vickery’s uses of “yards as a whole” also came up in the ADS-L discussion.) – Tammi Terrell ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2008, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-1942-usage-of-whole-nine-yards/459161/31 "2008-08-10T15:55:17Z")
All of the constructions in Tammi Terrell’s post sound awkward to me. I wouldn’t say them that way. This is clearly a matter of dialect though. The fact that people used those constructions means that in some dialects they sound natural. I wonder if the construction with “whole” immediately preceding a number and then a noun is slowly dying out. If so, the expression “the whole nine yards” is (or is slowly becoming) a currently used phrase whose grammar is (or is becoming) obsolete. Such things happen sometimes. ---
**Author:** ![Robert\_The\_Rebuilder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/13edae/32.png) [@Robert\_The\_Rebuilder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robert_The_Rebuilder)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2008, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-1942-usage-of-whole-nine-yards/459161/32 "2008-08-12T19:29:42Z")
One quick way we can reject the use of this phrase as an accidental coincidence is to see if the hearings focused on nine ship yards specifically. If it did, then the admiral was just referring to the collective set of ship yards, and this is not an intentional use of the phrase. But if it did not (i.e. there were less or more shipyards being discussed), then clearly the use of phrase is intentional slang (and quite a good pun I might add) and not accidental. ---
**Author:** ![zut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zut/32/2875_2.png) [@zut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zut)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2008, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-1942-usage-of-whole-nine-yards/459161/33 "2008-08-12T22:34:07Z")
What **RJKUgly** said in post 25. They’re discussing a set of nine shipyards. Sometimes the yards (or plants) referred to are only some of the nine, sometimes they’re the whole nine. ---
**Author:** ![Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bc8723/32.png) [@Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fish)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2008, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-1942-usage-of-whole-nine-yards/459161/34 "2008-08-12T23:47:53Z")
I accept **Tammi** ’s citations, for what it’s worth. They don’t sound awkward to me; I have heard people speak that way. What is less clear to me is how we got from the general case of using “whole [integer] [noun]s” to specific case “the whole nine yards”. Why did _nine yards_, of all combinations, become preserved as idiom? ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2008, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-1942-usage-of-whole-nine-yards/459161/35 "2008-08-13T02:33:42Z")
Fish writes: \> Why did nine yards, of all combinations, become preserved as idiom? That’s exactly what etymologists have been trying to understand. If you can figure that out, you will win the Nobel Prize in Etymology. (Well, if there was a Nobel Prize in Etymology you would, but Alfred Nobel’s wife had an affair with an etymologist, so Nobel nixed the idea of that prize.) ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2008, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-1942-usage-of-whole-nine-yards/459161/36 "2008-08-13T03:00:28Z")
[QUOTE=Fish] I accept **Tammi** ’s citations, for what it’s worth. They don’t sound awkward to me; I have heard people speak that way. What is less clear to me is how we got from the general case of using “whole [integer] [noun]s” to specific case “the whole nine yards”. Why did _nine yards_, of all combinations, become preserved as idiom? [/QUOTE] Some speculate that the number “nine” has been for hundreds? of years kinda a magical number. There is also the possiblity that it refers to an old joke in the military from the 1950’s. As more and more newspapers/texts/sources get digitized, perhaps we’ll get a better grasp on it than we have at the current time. ---
**Author:** ![Dan\_Norder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4af34b/32.png) [@Dan\_Norder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dan_Norder)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2008, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-1942-usage-of-whole-nine-yards/459161/37 "2008-08-13T19:15:45Z")
Regarding the April 25, 1964 Tuscon newspaper reference I see mentioned here and there as the earliest known reference for “whole nine yards” used in the idiomatic way (instead of “all nine yards” in an earlier ref), can someone who has followed it tell me if the experts are aware that that April 25 report was just a reprint? I’ve found an April 18, 1965, version of the same article in the San Antonia Express/News, in which it is stated that the article is copyright by the World Book Encyclopedia Science Service, Inc., which means it probably spread it far and wide, which is a likely major vector in popularizing it. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2008, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-1942-usage-of-whole-nine-yards/459161/38 "2008-08-13T19:58:13Z")
[QUOTE=samclem] There is also the possiblity that it refers to an old joke in the military from the 1950’s. [/QUOTE] Or football. When I first heard it in the early seventies it seemed to have a sarcastic hint to it, as if the person had fallen short of his goal, though that might just have been my interpretation. ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2008, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-1942-usage-of-whole-nine-yards/459161/39 "2008-08-13T20:46:27Z")
[QUOTE=Wendell Wagner] Alfred Nobel’s wife had an affair with an etymologist, so Nobel nixed the idea of that prize.) [/QUOTE] It probably would have bugged him a lot more if the affair had been with an entymologist. ---
**Author:** ![Dan\_Norder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4af34b/32.png) [@Dan\_Norder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dan_Norder)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2008, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-1942-usage-of-whole-nine-yards/459161/40 "2008-08-13T20:48:26Z")
More precise Googling shows that my cite is already known about. Ah well. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-1942-usage-of-whole-nine-yards/459161.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-1942-usage-of-whole-nine-yards/459161.md?page=3)