# More on "the whole nine yards"

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-on-the-whole-nine-yards/1026081>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [December 26, 2025, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-on-the-whole-nine-yards/1026081 "2025-12-26T20:24:44Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
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**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\
**Post date:** [December 27, 2025, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-on-the-whole-nine-yards/1026081/8 "2025-12-27T22:46:12Z")

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I agree that the 1855 usage is not the later idiom. I like better [the prototype from 1850](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whole-nine-yards-revisited-again/1018291/39) you gave in the other thread. It uses just a reference to someone’s “nine yards,” meaning an exceptionally long letter to the newspaper in a feud they were having in it, rather than “the whole nine yards,” but certainly is used idiomatically much the same as the later finds rather than a reference to physical cloth. Someone should get that into the Wikipedia article.

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