where does the expression "the whole nine yards"come from?

Answer 1

This has long been one of the great unsolved mysteries of modern etymology. What we have known for some years is that the phrase is recorded from the 1960s, is an Americanism (it’s nothing like so well known in Britain, for example), and has the meaning of “everything; all of it; the whole lot; the works”.
What is most remarkable about the phrase is the number of attempts that have been made to explain it. This may be because it’s an odd expression. But perhaps our need to make sense of this saying in particular is because it came into existence only during the lifetime of many people still with us, and so lacks the patina of age that turns phrases into naturalised idioms that we accept without question.
While looking into it, I’ve seen references to the size of a nun’s habit, the amount of material needed to make a man’s three-piece suit, the length of a maharajah’s ceremonial sash, the capacity of a West Virginia ore wagon, the volume of rubbish that would fill a standard garbage truck, the length of a hangman’s noose, how far you would have to sprint during a jail break to get from the cellblock to the outer wall, the length of a standard bolt of cloth, the volume of a rich man’s grave, or just possibly the length of his shroud, the size of a soldier’s pack, the length of cloth needed for a Scottish “great kilt”, or some distance associated with sports or athletics, especially the game of American football.
Few of these have anything going for it except the unsung inventiveness of compulsive explainers. For example, a man’s suit requires about five square yards of material; anyone who thinks a soldier’s pack could measure nine cubic yards is dimensionally challenged; and I’m told it takes ten yards to earn a first down in American football, not nine.
One particularly bizarre story that turns up more frequently than any other is that it represents the capacity of a ready-mixed concrete truck, so that the whole nine yards might be a reference to a complete load. It does seem rather unlikely that a term from such a specialist field would become so well known throughout North America, but one or two writers are convinced this is the true origin. However, the capacity of today’s trucks varies a great deal, and few of them can actually carry nine cubic yards of concrete. Matthew Jetmore, a contributor to the alt.folklore.urban newsgroup, unearthed evidence from the August 1964 issue of the Ready Mixed Concrete Magazine that this could not have been the origin: “Whereas, just a few years ago, the 4.5 cubic yard mixer was definitely the standard of the industry, the average nationwide mixer size by 1962 had increased to 6.24 cubic yards, with still no end in sight to the demand for increased payload”. That makes it clear that at the time the expression was presumably coined the usual size was only about half the nine (cubic) yards of the saying.
Another relates to the idea of yards being the long spars on a ship rather than units of measurement. The argument is that a three-masted ship had three yards on each mast for the square sails, making nine in all. So that a ship with all sail set would be using the whole nine yards. The biggest problem here is dating—by the time the expression came into use, sailing ships were long gone; even if the phrase were fifty years older than its first certified appearance (unlikely, but not impossible), it would still be right at the very end of the sailing-ship era, and long after its heyday. Other problems are that big square-rigged sailing ships commonly had more than nine yards and that the expression ought in that case to be all nine yards rather than the whole nine yards (the same objection can be made about other suggestions that involve numbers rather than areas or volumes). Another attempt at relating the expression to sailing ships has it that nine yards is somehow related to the area of canvas, but a full-rigged ship had vastly more than nine square yards of sail.
Yet another explanation is that it was invented by fighter pilots during World War Two. It is said the .50 calibre machine gun ammunition belts in an aircraft of the period measured exactly 27 feet. If the pilots fired all their ammo at a target, they would say that it got “the whole nine yards”. A merit of this claim is that it would explain why the phrase only began to be recorded after the War.
All the early references are linked to the Vietnam War and this has led a few researchers to suggest an association with the Montagnards, the hill tribes of Vietnam who joined the war on the US side and who suffered grievously as a result. It is sometimes said that there were nine tribes, and that the US Army commonly abbreviated their name to Yards. So: the whole nine Yards. The problem with this is that there are actually more than nine groups of Montagnards and there’s no clear evidence the phrase was ever used in this way.
After many years of puzzlement and false leads, we seem to be approaching the answer, which may by an odd twist combine several of these stories by connecting aircraft, Scotsmen and the kilt, and Vietnam.
Barry Popik, a New York researcher, found that an early user of the phrase was the US Navy pilot Captain Richard Stratton, who became one of the best known prisoners of war in North Vietnam during the conflict. Captain Stratton has clear memories of having heard it at the Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Florida, in July 1955, in reference to a risqué story (which you will find on Barry Popik’s site) about the fictional Andrew MacTavish and his courtship with Mary Margaret MacDuff.
We must be cautious, since this is anecdotal evidence, and memory can be very fallible, especially that far back. But, if true, the origin lies in a mildly dirty joke, which I can’t help finding incongruous in view of all the earnest attempts that have been made at explaining it.

Answer 2

Meaning: A complete job, quality, without cutting corners.
Example: My new car has air conditioning, power windows, power locks - the whole nine yards.
Origin: Interestingly, this seems to be one of the most disputed phrase origins. Many possible explanations, yet no consensus on the true origin. Take your pick.
This phrase has also been attributed to WW2 fighter planes. Nine yards was the exact length of a belt of 50-caliber ammunition for the Corsair fighter. If a target was shot at with the entire band, it was said to have been given "the whole nine yards".

Alternative: A tailor making a high quality suit uses more fabric. The best suits are made from nine yards of fabric.

This may seem like a lot but a proper suit does indeed take nine yards of fabric. This is because a good suit has all the fabric cut in the same direction with the warp, or long strands of thread, parallel with the vertical line of the suit. This causes a great amount of waste in suit making, but if you want to go "the whole nine yards", you must pay for such waste.

Related phrase: "Dressed to the nines".

The phrase certainly applies to the preparation of a full set of men's clothing. To fully understand this, you need to know what constituted a "full set of clothing" for a man in the 17th and 18th Centuries where the phrase can first be traced.

The items of clothing for a man were a Westkit (waistcoat), Breeches (pants) and a Great Coat. The material requirements to tailor these garments (even with a minimal amount of waste) is nine yards of material (45" width in the 1800s). A Westkit requires 1.5 yards, Breeches requires 2.0 yards and the Coat requires 5.5 yards for a total of 9.0 yards. These amounts can be confirmed with many museums, historians or period re-enactors.

The reason that the Coats required so much material was that they went from shoulder down to the back of the knee in length, and then the lower portion of the coat was full and pleated, almost like a dress. The pattern for the coat below the waist is almost a full circle

Alternative: "The whole nine yards" refers to the amount of fabric in a proper Scottish kilt. Nine yards of fabric seemed positively way too much for a skirt, The kilt, much like the suit, must have the fabric oriented in the proper direction. The plaid (or Tartan) has to be matched perfectly, so it doesn't look crooked. This alone takes a huge amount of cloth. The nine yards is the area of the fabric the tailor starts with, much of which ends up as scrap. Additionally, a kilt does not simply wrap around the waist. It also includes fabric that is worn up and over the shoulder. Old style kilts were used as blankets, toweling, or whatever else came to mind. There is a tale about one man using his to escape from a window of his lady-friend's bedchamber when her husband came home early.

Alternative: Old style concrete mixers, or coal bins, held nine yards.

Alternative: Many old sailing ships had three masts, the fore, main, and mizzen. Each mast held three square sails. The horizontal stays that support the square sails are called yards. Hence the ships had nine yards.

Depending on the sailing conditions, more or less sails would be raised. In the best conditions peak speed could be achieved by raising all nine main sails - the whole nine yards.

Answer 3

The origins of the expression are unknown, but various theories are popularly held as to the root of it. Suggested sources have included sources as diverse as the size of cement mixers, the length of bridal veils, the manufacture of kilts, American football slang, the length of cloth bolts, and the structure of certain sailing vessels (where "yard" is short for yardarm, not for the distance). Little to no documentary evidence has ever surfaced supporting any of these. One of the more common theories is that the expression dates from the Second World War, where the "nine yards" was the full length of a machine-gun ammunition belt, and to "go the full nine yards" was to use it up in its entirety. The expression, however, has only been dated back to early 1967, in U.S. Air Force slang recorded in Vietnam.[1] By November 1967 it was recorded in use in the U.S. Army, likewise from Vietnam, and by mid-1969 was appearing in newspaper advertisements in the United States.[2] The first citation in the Oxford English Dictionary is from 1970, in the magazine Word Watching.[3] Whilst written occurrences have not been found predating 1967, a number of anecdotal recollections suggest the use of the phrase dates back at least a further decade, and potentially into the 1940s. One of the better-documented cases is provided by Captain Richard Stratton, who recorded in 2005 that he encountered the phrase during naval flight training in Florida in July of 1955 as part of a ribald story about a mythical Scotsman.[4] It has been suggested that there is strong circumstantial evidence it was not in general use in 1961 - Ralph Boston set a world-record for the long jump that year at 27 feet, or nine yards, but no newspaper story has been found which made any reference to the term, suggesting journalists were unaware of it or did not see it as common enough to use as a pun.[5] Also, the wedding sari in a hindu wedding is nine yards of silk that is wrapped around the body.

Answer 4

The origins of the expression are unknown, but various theories are popularly held as to the root of it. Suggested sources have included sources as diverse as the size of cement mixers, the length of bridal veils, the manufacture of kilts, American football slang, the length of cloth bolts, and the structure of certain sailing vessels (where "yard" is short for yardarm, not for the distance). Little to no documentary evidence has ever surfaced supporting any of these.

One of the more common theories is that the expression dates from the Second World War, where the "nine yards" was the full length of a machine-gun ammunition belt, and to "go the full nine yards" was to use it up in its entirety. The expression, however, has only been dated back to early 1967, in U.S. Air Force slang recorded in Vietnam.[1] By November 1967 it was recorded in use in the U.S. Army, likewise from Vietnam, and by mid-1969 was appearing in newspaper advertisments in the United States.[2] The first citation in the Oxford English Dictionary is from 1970, in the magazine Word Watching.[3]

Whilst written occurences have not been found predating 1967, a number of anecdotal recollections suggest the use of the phrase dates back at least a further decade, and potentially into the 1940s. One of the better-documented cases is provided by Captain Richard Stratton, who recorded in 2005 that he encountered the phrase during naval flight training in Florida in July of 1955 as part of a ribald story about a mythical Scotsman.[4] It has been suggested that there is strong circumstantial evidence it was not in general use in 1961 - Ralph Boston set a world-record for the long jump that year at 27 feet, or nine yards, but no newspaper story has been found which made any reference to the term, suggesting journalists were unaware of it or did not see it as common enough to use as a pun.[5]

Answer 5

I went to Cecil's web site and did a quick scan. I didn't see this one:

It goes back to WWII. Machine gunners on bombers had cartridge belts that were 27 feet (9 Yards) long. When they returned from a mission with no ammo left, they said they gave them "the whole nine yards". I doubt we'll ever get the actual answer on this.

Answer 6

my guess would be from football b/c they're 10 yeards for a 1st down and they would have to go the "whole _ yeards" at once and nine was the most occuring number. It's a way of saying the whole distance or all the way

Answer 7

It's the safe distance to stay away from my Mother-in law.

Answer 8

It's about knitting a sweater.

Answer 9

I'm going with orf1943. Thats the same answer I had.

Answer 10

uncle cecil says

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_252.html