Whole nine yards

[Spike Jones 5 2002]

Who know where the expression, "The Whole Nine Yards" came from.

 

[Tyler-The-Piker]

LMGTFY

 

[rob63]

Supposedly the length of a machine gun ammo belt.

I say supposedly because it is usually attributed to the length of the ammo belt in a WWII fighter plane, however, the .50 cal used disintegrating links so there wasn't actually any such thing as a 9 yard long ammo belt. You could certainly get one that length with the right amount of cartridges linked together, but I don't know if they were really that long or not.

Plus, it is still possible that is where the saying comes from regardless of whether the description is literally accurate or not.

 

[ghuns]

From Indiana...

The Oxford English Dictionary places the earliest published non-idiomatic use of the phrase in the New Albany Daily Ledger (New Albany, Indiana, January 30, 1855) in an article called "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 first known use of the phrase as an idiom appears in The Mitchell Commercial, a newspaper in the small town of Mitchell, Indiana, in its May 2, 1907 edition:

"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 stand, but we can not promise the full nine yards."

 

[churchmouse]

I heard it related to the length of the belts laid into the wings for each of the 50's. When describing encounters the pilots would say they gave them the whole 9 yards by emptying the guns on them. But ghuns offers up a new angle.

 

[ghuns]

...But ghuns offers up a new angle.

I can Google with the best of them.

 

[jamil]

Who know where the expression, "The Whole Nine Yards" came from.

Me. It came from me. Here’s the story.

Years ago I had a heap of dirt delivered by dumptruck. My wife saw that big pile o’ red dirt and asked, are you sure you need that much? I said, yeah, that’s what the calculations came to. But we’ll see.

My project took weeks to finish. I toiled in the hot Missippi sun for the few hours of daylight each night after work, and sunrise to sunset on the weekends. When it was all finished my wife admired my handy work. I said, “thanks. It was a lot of work but well worth it. And I told you I’d need the whole 9 yards.”

 

[rvb]

I told you I’d need the whole 9 yards.

 

[BugI02]

I heard it related to the length of the belts laid into the wings for each of the 50's. When describing encounters the pilots would say they gave them the whole 9 yards by emptying the guns on them. But ghuns offers up a new angle.

I have read that the belts for the inboard guns on 51s and 47s had 350 rounds per and were quite close to being '9 yards' long (less than 4" shy of that measure), while the outboard guns were constrained by space to 240 rounds. Is it possible (likely) that armorers would not count rounds when sectioning the belts but would be more likely to use a linear measurement to ballpark it? I could see that spawning the concept

 

[Rookie]

Me. It came from me. Here’s the story.

Years ago I had a heap of dirt delivered by dumptruck. My wife saw that big pile o’ red dirt and asked, are you sure you need that much? I said, yeah, that’s what the calculations came to. But we’ll see.

My project took weeks to finish. I toiled in the hot Missippi sun for the few hours of daylight each night after work, and sunrise to sunset on the weekends. When it was all finished my wife admired my handy work. I said, “thanks. It was a lot of work but well worth it. And I told you I’d need the whole 9 yards.”

http://www.emailsfroman*******.dontevenreply.com/view.php?post=104

 

[CPT Nervous]

I've always attributed it to the length of the 50 cal belts in the P-51 series fighter planes, as mentioned.

 

[Spike Jones 5 2002]

Yes that is the story. The Ammo cans for the M2 Machine gun carried 27 feet of 50 cal ammo or 9 yards.
The term is not just for the ammo cans for the Aircraft They all carried the same amount.