# The whole nine yards (again) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [November 5, 2015, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-whole-nine-yards-again/736720 "2015-11-05T15:46:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Teuton](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/teuton/32/3864_2.png) [@Teuton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Teuton)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2015, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-whole-nine-yards-again/736720/1 "2015-11-05T15:46:09Z")
From the bottom of [Who invented the cocktail umbrella — and why? - The Straight Dope](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2365/who-invented-the-cocktail-umbrella-and-why) I’m sure it’s come up, but I had a quick search of the forum and I couldn’t see it mentioned, so I thought I’d mention that an 1855 usage of the phrase in a book collection of the humorous magazine [Yankee Notions.](https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=7JFRAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA167&dq=%22whole+nine+yards%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCQQ6AEwAWoVChMIuMH_wcz5yAIVhL4UCh1GSADZ#v=onepage&q=whole%20nine%20yards&f=false) In the story, instead of making 3 shirts from the nine yards of cloth, the seamstress put “the whole nine yards into one shirt.”. It’s a long time from 1885 to the next print version in the 60s though. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2015, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-whole-nine-yards-again/736720/2 "2015-11-05T15:57:53Z")
I will bet one wooden nickel that when and if this is ever nailed down, it will have to do with nine yard bolts of cloth. ---
**Author:** ![conway](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ec9cab/32.png) [@conway](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/conway)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2015, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-whole-nine-yards-again/736720/3 "2015-11-05T16:09:29Z")
[Link to the most recently updated nine yards thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=550944) ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2015, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-whole-nine-yards-again/736720/4 "2015-11-05T16:18:18Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > I will bet one wooden nickel that when and if this is ever nailed down, it will have to do with nine yard bolts of cloth. I’ll bet a wooden nickel that it won’t ever be nailed down, that the phrase arose independently multiple times in different contexts. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-whole-nine-yards-again/736720/5 "2015-11-06T01:37:25Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > I will bet one wooden nickel that when and if this is ever nailed down, it will have to do with nine yard bolts of cloth. I’ll wager a REAL nickel against your wooden one that cloth isn’t the origin. ---
**Author:** ![squidfood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a87d85/32.png) [@squidfood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squidfood)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-whole-nine-yards-again/736720/6 "2015-11-06T17:28:55Z")
This reminds me of a google books search in one of the previous threads, where “whole nine yards” came up in a (1940s?) senate testimony on naval shipyards. Point being, the phrase could certainly occur “naturally” a few times in a hundred years without being tied to a saying. That said, this 1855 story is the kind that _could_ have been a 19th century urban legend captured in print… ---
**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:** [November 6, 2015, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-whole-nine-yards-again/736720/7 "2015-11-06T19:43:33Z")
> [@conway](#): > > [Link to the most recently updated nine yards thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=550944) Which of course contains references to the story Teuton cites but oddly didn’t contain the name of the magazine, which is why it wouldn’t come up in a search. ---
**Author:** ![Teuton](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/teuton/32/3864_2.png) [@Teuton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Teuton)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-whole-nine-yards-again/736720/8 "2015-11-06T20:28:40Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Which of course contains references to the story Teuton cites but oddly didn’t contain the name of the magazine, which is why it wouldn’t come up in a search. Yeah, looks like it’s a known thing. I admit I’m quite surprised that it’s so dismissed by linguists - I’m not one myself, but it seems to me that the cite uses it in pretty much the way it’s used now, just in context. ---
**Author:** ![Powers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@Powers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Powers)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2015, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-whole-nine-yards-again/736720/9 "2015-11-07T03:21:17Z")
> [@Teuton](#): > > Yeah, looks like it’s a known thing. I admit I’m quite surprised that it’s so dismissed by linguists - I’m not one myself, but it seems to me that the cite uses it in pretty much the way it’s used now, just in context. The problem, I think, is that if it was actually the source of the idiom, there almost certainly would be other uses of it _as an idiom_ before the middle of the 20th century. And no such uses have been found. Powers &8^] ---
**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:** [November 13, 2015, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-whole-nine-yards-again/736720/10 "2015-11-13T22:10:38Z")
> [@Powers](#): > > The problem, I think, is that if it was actually the source of the idiom, there almost certainly would be other uses of it _as an idiom_ before the middle of the 20th century. And no such uses have been found. Just a small point of clarification: in fact, we now have a handful of early 20th-century sightings (1907-1921) of “the whole/full nine yards” and “the whole six yards.” (And an 1883 usage of “the whole three yards,” which seems to me to be used idiomatically, but how it’s used is open to interpretation.) But that we have instances in which the idiom appeared ca. 1915, some 60 years after the 1855 printing of that “Judge’s Big Shirt” anecdote, to my mind doesn’t mean that the idiom and the anecdote are necessarily linked. ---
**Author:** ![Grigalem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de0a6/32.png) [@Grigalem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grigalem)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2015, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-whole-nine-yards-again/736720/11 "2015-11-14T16:37:50Z")
Um, that’s not a usage of TWNY in the sense we are discussing. FAIL.