# "Whole Nine Yards," Revisited. Again

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whole-nine-yards-revisited-again/1018291>\
**Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\
**Created:** [May 12, 2025, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whole-nine-yards-revisited-again/1018291 "2025-05-12T12:46:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 75

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**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\
**Post date:** [March 5, 2026, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whole-nine-yards-revisited-again/1018291/75 "2026-03-05T01:02:54Z")

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I mentioned “The Judge’s Big Shirt” a while back. The problem is that there doesn’t seem to be any connection between 1855 and the turn-of-the-century use of the phrase. Even with the earliest date pushed back, we are still looking at a 50 year gap.

> [@the whole nine yards](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-whole-nine-yards/527852/84):
>
> It’s pushing back closer to 1855 [The Judges shirt](http://www.sos.wa.gov/legacy/newspapers_articles.aspx?t=28&i=1804) –which looks like column filler that was widely reprinted. When the first “9 yards” sighting was 1955, that was clearly unrelated. Now I’m going to wonder if it was a riff on a common expression even then.

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