Hi Solbjerg, Olivier, and everyone,
This slang expression – “the whole nine yards” – was not widely used before 1961. How do we know that? In May 1961, American athlete Ralph Boston broke the world long jump record by jumping 27 feet ½ inch. As no one had previously ever jumped 27 feet – that is, 9 yards, this was big news, reported all over the world. Surely some headline must have read:
“Boston Goes the Whole Nine Yards”
But not a single news report worldwide used the phrase, suggesting that if it was coined before 1961, it was not known by the slang-savvy press.
The earliest known examples of the expression date back to the early 1960s, and each is recorded in print in a US publication. This indicates that the phrase began as an American expression. The very first time we find “the whole nine yards” appearing in print as a slang term was in the Fall of 1962.
A former drill sergeant at Fort Benning, Georgia, says that the phrase began “circa 1960” at the US Army Infantry School here. It started out as a phrase used by the drill sergeants when they talked about the “three-second rush”, which refers to how an infantryman moves while under fire. This three-second rush works on the theory that a person running can only be exposed for no more than 3 seconds before the enemy acquires target and fires. So one has 3 seconds to get up, run, and dive to the ground. The drill sergeants were constantly urging their men not to stop short of “the whole nine yards”, or the rush wouldn't be effective. Going less distance was far more dangerous. The expression soon was also used by Fort Benning's Army officers and soldiers for completing any task.
As the drill sergeant concludes: “I was a drill sergeant at Fort Benning, Georgia when the three second rush was introduced and witnessed the genesis of this phrase. It started out as a Drill Sergeant phrase, was passed on – emphatically– to young Infantrymen, spread throughout the Army, and is now common vernacular. ” You can read his story at
http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/the- ... ilida.html
This sounds like the most plausible explanation for how we got the popular phrase “the whole nine yards”. It could have easily spread from the US military population to the civilian population and then to the global community.
Regarding the dirty joke known as “The Scotsman's Kilt” with the punch-line “the whole nine yards” from 1955, there is a rather similar (but clean) story a full century earlier! Titled “The Judge's Big Shirt”, it appeared in the US newspaper
Democratic Standard, dated March 14, 1855, and then was re-published in quite a few other US newspapers later that month. Like “The Scotsman's Kilt”, “The Judge's Big Shirt” is a humorous fictional story that involves a man wearing an article of clothing way too long, and includes the line “the whole nine yards”.
In this story, the judge gets punked by his friend who instructs a seamstress to make one shirt from 9 yards of fabric rather than the usual 3 yards. When the judge tries on the shirt, finding himself shrouded in the monstrously sized shirt, his friend feigns surprise saying
“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!''”
As the story continues: “The judge then has to tuck the extra 6 yards of fabric into his pants, to the merriment of all, including his wife's, when she thinks it's another woman's shift [a loose-fitting dress hanging straight down].”
Similar to the judge adorned in this dress of 9 yards, the Scotsman Andy is dressed in a kilt that could be of 9 yards also, accompanied by a 9-yard-long scarf. (Historically the amount of cloth used to make a great kilt was 9 yards.) In both these stories “the whole nine yards” applies to a long article of clothing worn by a man. I can't help but wonder if both these stories stem from an original tale where “the whole nine yards” is a double-entendre for “what's under the kilt”. In any case, since “The Scotsman's Kilt” was a joke told at the Navy Pre-Flight School in Pensacola, Florida, perhaps this tale or a similar version was also known at the Army Infantry School in Georgia in the mid-1950s. The Army drill sergeants may have borrowed the phrase, using it to train their troops circa 1960.
Best regards,
Mathea
PS Sorry it took some time to answer this – I didn't have access to the computer for a while. It kept crash dumping. Immediately after that was finally fixed, this Tuesday Joe unexpectedly lost his job and has been on the computer night and day, filing for unemployment, networking, updating and posting his resumé online, etc.
