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."
...But ghuns offers up a new angle.
Me. It came from me. Here’s the story.Who know where the expression, "The Whole Nine Yards" came from.
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.
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.”