# Unraveling "the whole nine yards" **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [December 27, 2012, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unraveling-the-whole-nine-yards/645245 "2012-12-27T02:54:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2013, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unraveling-the-whole-nine-yards/645245/41 "2013-01-01T00:43:28Z")
So, now that there’s a “whole six yards” antecedent, are we going to be subjected to all the old stand-bys? It takes exactly six yards of cloth to make a Scottish kilt, ammunition belts from the Franco-Prussian War were exactly six yards long, etc etc ? … happy new year. ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2013, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unraveling-the-whole-nine-yards/645245/42 "2013-01-01T01:53:55Z")
My devil strip is six yards! ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2013, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unraveling-the-whole-nine-yards/645245/43 "2013-01-01T02:27:03Z")
At what point(s) in history did the US Navy have six shipyards? ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2013, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unraveling-the-whole-nine-yards/645245/44 "2013-01-01T03:55:58Z")
> [@BMalion](#): > > My devil strip is six yards! Only time I’ve ever wanted to be able to “Like” a post. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2013, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unraveling-the-whole-nine-yards/645245/45 "2013-01-01T05:07:27Z")
According to [The Scottish Trading Company](http://www.scottishtradingcompany.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=821), the traditional _breacan feile_, or Great Kilt, is 4 and a half to six yards of wool tartan. It is nothing else, just a rectangular piece of fabric, that the wearer folds, pleats and belts. Not, however, 9 yards in length. underwear is optional ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2013, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unraveling-the-whole-nine-yards/645245/46 "2013-01-01T14:07:00Z")
> [@For You](#): > > According to [The Scottish Trading Company](http://www.scottishtradingcompany.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=821), the traditional _breacan feile_, or Great Kilt, is 4 and a half to six yards of wool tartan. It is nothing else, just a rectangular piece of fabric, that the wearer folds, pleats and belts. Not, however, 9 yards in length. > > underwear is optional I know that, **For You** , I was being sarcastic. The fabric-for-kilt thing was one of the more ludicrous “explanations” for “whole nine yards.” ---
**Author:** ![Xgemina](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/b5e925/32.png) [@Xgemina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xgemina)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2013, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unraveling-the-whole-nine-yards/645245/47 "2013-01-01T21:46:41Z")
I came in here expecting yet another of the countless threads saying how “everyone” knows that the whole nine yards is the length of a belt of ammo, fabric for a kilt/shroud/sari, etc, etc. :smack: I’m so happy to be wrong! Nice detective work Tammi and Sam! ---
**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:** [January 2, 2013, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unraveling-the-whole-nine-yards/645245/48 "2013-01-02T13:39:32Z")
> [@Xgemina](#): > > I came in here expecting yet another of the countless threads… Apparently so did everyone else. Did you notice that about 20 of the posters have been around for 10 years or more? It’s like an old-timers game. ---
**Author:** ![Gedd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gedd/32/4938_2.png) [@Gedd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gedd)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2013, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unraveling-the-whole-nine-yards/645245/49 "2013-01-02T18:27:08Z")
I might have missed it, but did it give the author of the articles anywhere? If they were done by the same person it might just have been their own colorful speech. If they were different maybe we should search some more Kentuckian papers. ---
**Author:** ![ZenBeam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/3ab097/32.png) [@ZenBeam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZenBeam)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2013, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unraveling-the-whole-nine-yards/645245/50 "2013-01-02T19:08:21Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Apparently so did everyone else. Did you notice that about 20 of the posters have been around for 10 years or more? It’s like an old-timers game. :dubious: This old-timer recognized **Tammi Terrell**. I knew there’d be an update, not some already-discredited theory. ---
**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:** [January 3, 2013, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unraveling-the-whole-nine-yards/645245/51 "2013-01-03T06:35:38Z")
> [@Gedd](#): > > I might have missed it, but did it give the author of the articles anywhere? If they were done by the same person it might just have been their own colorful speech. If they were different maybe we should search some more Kentuckian papers. For what it’s worth, I’m pretty sure one unnamed writer who reported news out of the small town of Livingston (Kentucky) was the user of “the whole six yards” in that Kentucky newspaper in the 1910s. A so-far unidentified sports writer for the Spartanburg, South Carolina newspaper was responsible for “the whole six yards of it” in 1921. These writers were not the same person. I don’t think it’s worrisome that the four earliest appearances of “the whole six yards” were penned by only two different people in two different newspapers. Consider that the only two so-far documented sightings of “the whole nine yards” from the 1950s were made by the same person, in the same publication. (This gentlemen, now in his early 80s, told me that “the whole nine yards” was something he grew up with in central Kentucky.) The third earliest occurrence of “the whole nine yards” (March, 1962) was the product of a different writer, but for the same Kentucky hunting and fishing magazine. Something that’s important, I think, about many of these early sightings is that these phrases, none of which are set off by quotation marks, are thrown in nonchalantly, without the author’s (or editor’s) apparently feeling the need to explain to readers what the heck the expression means. (Note that the same Kentucky newspaperman who casually used “the whole six yards” in the 1910s just as casually used “suit to a T.Y.,” which is completely foreign to us modern readers, but was apparently pretty well known at the time.) Of the six earliest appearances of “the whole nine yards” (including “all nine yards”) we’ve spotted so far (1957 through 1962), only one appears with any sort of notation about the expression’s use: Robert Wegner’s 1962 short story mentions “the whole nine yards, as a brush salesman who came by the house was fond of saying.” It’s only Wegner who felt it important to elaborate on the expression, however briefly. To me, that these early occurrences of “the whole yards” appeared without further explanation indicates that “the whole six yards” was known in at least in one part of Kentucky in the 1910s and at least shortly thereafter in western South Carolina. Further, by 1956 and 1957, “the whole nine yards” was likely familiar to some readers in Kentucky (and perhaps elsewhere). For those the expression may not have been familiar, the idiom was, from the viewpoint of the author (or editor/publisher), probably something readers ought to be able to figure out from context. ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unraveling-the-whole-nine-yards/645245/52 "2013-01-03T14:38:11Z")
Bloody good work. Now can we finally locate the origin of the cheeseburger? ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2013, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unraveling-the-whole-nine-yards/645245/53 "2013-01-04T00:45:43Z")
> [@BMalion](#): > > Bloody good work. > > Now can we finally locate the origin of the cheeseburger? Buried in the mist. Probably multiple people adapted it in the 1920s. ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2013, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unraveling-the-whole-nine-yards/645245/54 "2013-01-04T02:16:04Z")
> [@samclem](#): > > Buried in the mist. Probably multiple people adapted it in the 1920s. But, but, but, it was Pasadena! No wait, Akron! No, New York… ---
**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:** [September 7, 2013, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unraveling-the-whole-nine-yards/645245/55 "2013-09-07T23:37:51Z")
Sorry to bump an oldish thread, but for those still interested in this word puzzle … > [@Tammi\_Terrell](#): > > It’s tough to know, I think, whether “the whole six yards” was a true precursor or whether it co-existed with “the whole nine yards” (_examples of which from 100 years ago we haven’t yet found_) or whether people were using various versions of “the whole X yards” at the time and that these usages lie undiscovered. For whatever reason (phrase inflation?), though, “the whole nine yards” and related variants, “the full nine yards” and “all nine yards,” seem to have been the forms to emerge from the muck and make it into the 21st century. That’s about the only thing I seem to have gotten right in this, to acknowledge that “the whole six yards” and “the whole nine yards” may have co-existed a hundred years ago. Because we now have usages in south central Indiana of “the full nine yards” and “the whole nine yards” dating back a hundred years. > [@](#): > > \*\*[1907] \*\*This afternoon at 2:30 will be called one of the baseball games that will be worth going a long way to see. The regular nine is going to play the business men as many innings as they can, but we can not promise the full nine yards. [From “Baseball,” _The Mitchell Commercial_ (Lawrence County, Indiana), 2 May 1907, p. 2.] > > **[1908]** Roscoe Edwards and wife returned Wednesday evening of last week from Saltillo where they had been visiting Mr. and Mrs. W.C. Cook. While there Roscoe went fishing and has a big story to tell, but we refuse to stand while he unloads. He will catch some unsuspecting individual some of these days and give him the whole nine yards. [From _The Mitchell Commercial_, 4 June 1908, p. 3.] > > **[1912]** The above would indicate that bull moosers are trying to pave the way for “Teddy” to hang on forever, should they succeed in landing him this time. Might as well take the whole nine yards while you’re at it. If Roosevelt gets in move to make it permanent. [From “Third Term Superstition,”\* The Mitchell Commercial\*, 10 October 1912, p. 2.] > > **[1914]** Tired and disgusted the lady returned and while resting a moment a little girl came in and inquired if they should keep the basket too. The girl stated she called for the premiums and finding no one she looked in the basket and knew the goods belonged to her mama, so she took them. This settled the whole nine yards. [From “Story of a Green Basket,” _The Mitchell Commercial_, 26 November 1914, p. 1.] ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2013, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unraveling-the-whole-nine-yards/645245/56 "2013-09-08T13:22:00Z")
Interesting, and certainly lays waste to the WWII fighter plane theory… ---
**Author:** ![Running\_with\_Scissors](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a183cd/32.png) [@Running\_with\_Scissors](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Running_with_Scissors)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2013, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unraveling-the-whole-nine-yards/645245/57 "2013-09-08T14:31:14Z")
Curious that all these mentions are in the same obscure, defunct publication. ---
**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:** [September 8, 2013, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unraveling-the-whole-nine-yards/645245/58 "2013-09-08T14:44:27Z")
> [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](#): > > Interesting, and certainly lays waste to the WWII fighter plane theory… Or that it originated in WWI with the Vickers machine gun. And buh-bye to the concrete truck theory. > [@Running\_with\_Scissors](#): > > Curious that all these mentions are in the same obscure, defunct publication. Yes, and I think there was just one (anonymous) user of the expression (likely the editor/publisher) at this smalltown newspaper. Much like there was just one user of “the whole six yards” in that Kentucky newspaper at roughly the same time. (We do have a user of “the whole six yards” in South Carolina in 1921, but still.) Who knows, then, how common these expressions were in those communities a hundred years ago, but there was obviously some expectation that readers in south central Indiana and in the foothills of the Cumberland Mountains would be familiar with the idiom since nobody bothered giving further explanation. ---
**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:** [September 8, 2013, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unraveling-the-whole-nine-yards/645245/59 "2013-09-08T14:59:47Z")
By the way, I’ve no doubt we’ll find other instances of the idiom in other publications of the period in the coming months. These smalltown newspapers aren’t often digitized and added to various electronic news databases, but – with the enormous interest in geneaological research – it’s now worth it to sites that make such news databases available to add things like The Mitchell Commercial. So, although the appearance of “the full/whole nine yards” in just one newspaper of the period may look like a fluke, I think it’s just a signal that we’re getting close to unearthing many more instances as these databases enlarge. ---
**Author:** ![Ranger\_Jeff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranger_jeff/32/2065_2.png) [@Ranger\_Jeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranger_Jeff)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2013, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unraveling-the-whole-nine-yards/645245/60 "2013-09-09T01:08:48Z")
Since I first heard the phrase in Coast Guard recruit training, I figured it was a reference to a 3 masted ship with 3 yardarms on each mast. The “whole nine yards” would mean all yardarms would have sails deployed, therefore you’d be getting maximum speed. I think I suggested this once somewhere online and got shot down by the .50 cal ammo belts for P-51s. [pun intended :p] [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unraveling-the-whole-nine-yards/645245.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unraveling-the-whole-nine-yards/645245.md?page=4)