The human mind is constructed in such a way that it leaps into action when it encounters something incomplete. It pulses and throbs and weaves until it has constructed ascenario from a whisper, a shadow, a blip of light, a hint of movement. It connects dots that are pure figments of the imagination. Stark reality insists that some things will neverbe known or understood, but our inventive lobes quiver in electrochemical indignation at the very idea.
Over the years, many callers to my radio program Words to the Wise asked the deceptively simple question, “Where did the phrase the whole nine yards (meaning“everything”) come from?” I thought I knew, but I prudently said that I would do some research. Thank God (and Liberty Records) for Patience and Prudence, because the answer turns out to be elaborately confusing and inventively entertaining.
Before I list some of the explanations that have been circulating, let me quickly review afew of the principles that must guide anyone seeking to track down the original source of a word or phrase.
• Secondary sources just won’t do. The fact that your beloved grandparent orknowledgeable neighbor assured you that something is true simply isn’t good enough. If a phrase existed in the Middle Ages, then you must produce a primary source from that era, not from a book written centuries later.
• Even with a primary source, you must analyze the contemporary writer as thoroughlyas possible. Did the writer invent
the phrase, or is it a report? Is the writer reliable—that is, composing in a serious vein and ina field that he or she understands? Are there ulterior motives that would explain the writer’s point of view?
• Is there independent confirmation in other reliable sources? Remember, speculative anachronism is a cottage industry in folk etymology. (Have you received the email entitledLife in the Middle Ages yet?)
• Is the explanation logical, consistent, plausible, and relevant, not just colorful? Thefact that my old television mast was nine yards high, though true, has nothing to do with this subject.
This seems pretty clear, but it didn't stop speculation. In fact, one of the surprisingthings I encountered is the passion with which people defend their version of the source for this elusive phrase. Let's review some of the unfounded explanations, many of them quite serious, and others an attempt at humor.
Some of these pseudo-definitive explanations seem to be cut out of whole cloth. They claim that nine yards is
• the size of a nun’s habit
• the size of a wedding dress (or a wedding veil, or a royal train on a wedding dress)
• the amount of material needed to make a man’s three-piece suit
• the length of a maharajah’s ceremonial sash
• the length of a standard bolt of cloth
• the length of a burial shroud
• the nine yards of lanolin-soaked wool blankets the early Scots would wrap themselves in
• the length of Indian saris used for weddings and special occasions
• the length of turbans mandated under British colonial rule so that all castes would be equally outfitted
• the length of animal skins needed to cover a tepee
Some of these may be dismissed because the dates of their appearance make no sense. Then there’s the fact that one size does not fit all. Depending on an individual’sheight and weight, the material for a garment may be anywhere from four to seven yards.The standard bolt of cloth is much longer than nine yards, the average traditional nun's habit took about six yards of material, and there never was a mandated standard for turban size.Most of these explanations, in other words, do not reflect facts. And even if a sash wereactually nine yards long, what does fashion have to do with the meaning “all of it”? Any total length would fit the bill; nine yards would have no special claim.
Some explanations are rather bellicose in nature, claiming military origins.
• the bullet clips for Gatling guns (or some other WW I machine gun) were nine yards long
• 50 calibre machine gun ammunition belts in WW II Supermarine Spitfiresmeasured exactly 27 feet (variations: the Corsair fighter, the B-17, the P-47)
• a three-masted warship had three yardarms on each mast for the square sails, making nine in all
• traditionally, newly promoted sailors in the British Navy had to make the roundsof nine designated pubs near the London docks, drinking a “yard” of ale at each
• nine yards was the amount of material needed to make a parachute
• a soldier’s pack had a nine-yard capacity
In all six explanations, the era is wrong. In addition, the gun’s manufacturer varies from account to account, and separate clips seem to have been eleven feet long; they were measured in rounds, not yards.. In warships, anywhere from fifteen to eighteen yardarms were not uncommon. British paratroopers used a chute which was just shortof eight yards in diameter. So all of these seem to be shot down with a minimum of research.
Wheeled vehicles form another category used to account for the phrase’s origin. Thus, we have
• the capacity of a West Virginia ore wagon
• the volume of rubbish that would fill a standard garbage truck
• the capacity of a ready-mix cement truck
• the capacity of a horse-drawn coal wagon
In the 1960s, when the popular use of the phrase appears, cement trucks held 6+cubic yards of material. Garbage trucks come in all different sizes. A Ford cabover garbage truck had a 20 yard capacity, for instance, and a Peterbilt Heil had a 31 yardcapacity. The ore and coal wagons are in the wrong time frame.
One of the more likely sources for the phrase is the game of American football, where ten-yard segments are quite significant. If the phrase were the whole ten yards, Iwould yell Bingo! and collect my prize, but how do we explain something which comes up short? I have seen two explanations:
• this is a sarcastic reference to sloppy measurements by early football referees before chains were mandated
• it is a sarcastic euphemism used by football coaches for failure: you used allthat energy and still fell short—you went the whole nine yards when youneeded ten to make a first down
Then there are the explanations that range from the bizarre to the outrageous to the totally irrelevant. They’re my favorites.
• The length of a hangman’s noose
• The distance between the inner and outer fences of a prison
• The volume of a rich man’s deep grave during the Black Plague
• The whole nine yards was based upon the nine Fora of the Ancient Philosophers.A principle had to be validated in all nine Fora (courtyards used for debate); for the
idea to be accepted, it went the whole nine yards.
• A phrase used by doctors meaning the 27 feet of small intestine (actually, in anadult they are about 20 feet long)
• Variation of above: medieval disembowelment practices which exposed the alleged 27 feet of small intestine
• Painters used to measure large quantities of paint by the area it could cover. Thecommon unit was set at nine yards.
• The length of an old-fashioned manual typewriter ribbon; a really long typed report went the whole nine yards
• The number of properties, or yards, in a standard city block
• Derived from the handicapping system in the now defunct sport of live pigeon (trap) shooting.
So there you have it, some of the supposedly definitive origins for the whole nine yards herded together in one corral.
With that out of the way, here is what is provable, thanks to research by Barry Popick published in his blog, The Big Apple. It first shows up in 1855 in a humorous story that appeared in The New Albany, Indiana, Daily Ledger of January 30 in a story titled The Judge's Big Shirt: "What a silly, stupid woman! I told her to get just enough to make three shirts; instead of making three, she has put the whole nine yards into one shirt!" The joke was repeated for a few years, then quietly disappeared.
In the 1940s the phrase briefly emerged again in some newspaper recipe columns, still meaning everything. Then in the 1950s, a new bawdy joke about a naked drunk Scotsman, his kilt, and a shocked fiancé became popular with air cadets in Navy flight school, and it perdured throughout the Vietnam War. After that, it lost its connection to the salacious joke and entered common use.
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