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Arts & CultureYou can quote themThe inflation of “cloud seven” and “the whole six yards.”
By Fred Shapiro
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Jan/Feb 2013
Yale law librarian Fred R. Shapiro is editor of the Yale Book of Quotations.  Mary BanasView full imageRelated You Can Quote Them Send your quotation leads and questions to “You Can Quote Them,” Yale Alumni Magazine, PO Box 1905, New Haven, CT 06509-1905, or yam@yale.edu. Anyone who studies quotations and phraseology often sees a phenomenon I hereby dub “phrase inflation”: in expressions that use a number meant to be impressive, that number is likely to grow over time. An example is Mao’s “Let a hundred flowers bloom,” now usually rendered, at least in English, as “Let a thousand flowers bloom.” Another is “cloud nine,” implying a supreme state of euphoria; slang dictionaries of the early to mid-twentieth century record euphoria on “cloud seven” and “cloud eight.” But the number eventually settled on was nine. The number nine brings us to the main focus of this column: “the whole nine yards.” This common expression, meaning the full extent of something, has taken on huge significance among phrase mavens. Linguist Ben Zimmer ’92 calls it “something of a Holy Grail among word sleuths.” Popular theories about the origin of the phrase, often espoused with great conviction, include the amount of cloth in a Scottish kilt, the capacity of a concrete truck, and, especially, the length of certain World War II military equipment, usually aircraft machine gun ammunition belts. But every theory must be assessed in light of the dated documentation—or lack thereof. In a previous column (May/June 2009) I reported that Stephen Goranson and Bonnie Taylor-Blake had each found a printed use of the phrase dated late in 1962. They were the earliest known citations at that time. Recently, Taylor-Blake, a neuroscience researcher at the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill, found the saying in the July 1956 edition of Kentucky Happy Hunting Ground, a magazine published by the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources. The magazine listed several fishing prizes and then declared, “So that’s the whole nine-yards.” “The whole nine yards” also appeared in Kentucky Happy Hunting Ground in January 1957. Taylor-Blake’s next discovery took the research in a completely unexpected direction. Searching Google News Archive, she found, in the sports section of the Spartanburg (South Carolina) Herald-Journal of May 7, 1921, an article about a baseball game between the Spartanburg Spartans and the Greenville Spinners. With it was a more detailed, at-bat-by-at-bat description of the same game. The headline of the detailed account? “The Whole Six Yards of It.” That headline appears to use “the whole six yards” in exactly the same sense as we now use “the whole nine yards.” I found confirmation via the database Chronicling America. An article in the Mount Vernon (Kentucky) Signal of May 17, 1912, states: “But there is one thing sure, we dems would never have known that there was such crookedness in the Rebublican [sic] party if Ted and Taft had not got crossed at each other. Just wait boys until the fix gets to a fever heat and they will tell the whole six yards.” And again, in the June 28, 1912, issue: “As we have been gone for a few days and failed to get all the news for this issue we will give you the whole six yards in our next.” The aircraft ammunition belt theory seems to be disproven, along with all other World War II–related origin stories, by the presence of the idiom as early as 1912. Still, we have no explanation of why something six or nine yards long is being alluded to—of what was originally six or nine yards long. Perhaps an origin will be found in Kentucky culture, as, strikingly, the earliest known uses of both phrases are from Kentucky. Or perhaps the reference was never a specific length of a specific thing, but only a colorful locution vaguely signifying something very long. We can now at least trace the inflation that apparently led to the final formulation. |
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"Anyone else bothered by that gap between the 1921 6-yards entry and the 9-yards citations from the second half of the 1950s?"
That apparent gap isn't difficult to explain, I think. "The whole X yards" was an idiom that existed predominantly in oral form in the first half of the 20th century. It was used in informal settings, apparently in and around the southern Appalachians, and likely was infrequently captured in print. That we haven't yet found printed examples from 1922 to 1955 doesn't mean that the expression went underground during this period; it just means that printed examples of its usage are very, very difficult to find, at least at the moment.
What is the relevance of the observation that no sportswriters used "the whole nine yards" when referring to Ralph Boston's 27-foot jump in 1961? We now do know that at least a couple examples (from Kentucky) of "the whole nine yards" preceded Boston's 1961 feat. Further, there is absolutely no evidence that the idiom "was in at least common journalistic usage as 'whole 9 yards' by c.1960." Given the expression's apparent early regional restriction and its rare appearance in the popular press by 1961, the year of Boston's 27-foot jump, I think it's no puzzle that that we don't see sportwriters making use of "the whole nine yards" to describe Boston's accomplishment.
Anyone else bothered by that gap between the 1921 6-yards entry and the 9-yards citations from the second half of the 1950s? Did this phrase go underground for a generation? Why did it re-emerge and go mainstream in the 1960s? And if it had re-emerged and was in at least common journalistic usage as "whole 9 yards" by c.1960 it leaves untouched one of the puzzles from the search for the origin of this phrase. Why did not a single sports journalist make use of it when Ralph Boston became the first person to jump 27 feet?
I dont know if it is related at all to this but in south India there is a special saree (the common dress worn by women in this part of the world) which is referred to as the Nine Yards Saree. It is made by some very gifted weavers in certain parts of South India, especislly in the state of Maharashtra.
I too consider it *extremely* plausible that the phrase was originally associated with the Indian sari. As someone mentioned, "Indian women have been using nine yards of "sari" as a standard dress. But a modern Indian woman uses only six yards for the same." But it's not just modern Indian women. While most types of saris are traditionally 9 yards, Banarasi saris (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banarasi_saris) in particular have always been 6 yards in length. Coincidence? I think not!
Are the commenters here ignoring the point of the article? Most are still trying to cement (see what I did there) the nine yard version, when the researchers have found earlier usage of the phrase using six instead.
"The whole nine yards" stems from German folklore. Specifically in description of a "Giant." A Giant was described in popular German and English ballads as having "three spans [yards] between [eye]brows, and three yards between shoulders. 3 X 3 is nine; therefore, the "whole nine yards" to be a true Giant.
See Child, Francis James. "The English and Popular Ballads." Vol.I p.332, & Vol.II p.394.
Indian women have been using nine yards of "sari" as a standard dress. But a modern Indian woman uses only six yards for the same.
I was told by a 'Brit' friend that it was similar to "dressed to the nines" or using a nine yard bolt of cloth to make a piece of clothing. . .
Barry-Maryland. . .
Growing up in New England, I always thought, as Jonathan writes above, that the phrase referred to using the whole nine yards of sail -- unfurling ALL of them to increase speed and power. Tessa D.
Well I heard it was the length of the 1940 RAF Spitfire & Hurricane .303cal machine-gun ammo belts in Battle of Britian WW2, and the saying came from the pilots sitting on Jerry's tail and giving the enemy plane "the whole 9 yards" from 8 guns, until it fell out of the sky. Tech Specs/length of belt/divided by Browning Mk11 rate of fire.......possible????
Oops, read "3 millennia" instead of "3 centuries" in my previous comment!
We Indian women have been wearing 9-yard sarees (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sari) for almost 3 centuries now, so I'm pretty sure it must have been added to the language by the British, just like all the other words like pyjama and so forth.
Although I cannot cite a source, I always have believed that the phrase "the whole 9 yards" comes from the era of sail power, when the captain could increase the speed by his ship by unfurling all of his sails, akin to putting the ship in overdrive. Jonathan
it is evident that at this point we have gotten less than 'the whole nine yards' on this subject. Maybe six or seven???
I always assumed it was a football reference!
I always assumed it was the amount of material that some garment required, but I never had an idea what that might be. I do know that since shortly after I heard the phrase, I've said, "The whole nine yards does you no good when it's fourth-and-10."
What's wrong with you people? Everyone know a cement truck holds nine cubic
yards...
Regarding the baseball reference, six yards is 18 feet, the diameter of a pitching mound. Possibly a coincidence, but curious.
Royal funerals in the olden days in England allowed varying yards of black cloth for different ranks. Bishops and barons and some others got 9 yards. Others got more or less based on the rank. You can read about this by doing a google book search on something like
funeral knight cloth 9 yards
I can see someone saying "Baron Beebe gets the whole 9 yards."
How long is the column-total for a page of newspaper? if it's 24 inches tall and there are 9 columns in a page... then the page would have six column-yards of text... maybe? CharlieD