I have heard as all of have, that the world is full of phrases and sayings that originated from the Railroad terminology. Examples off the top of my head are: “asleep at the switch, doubleheader, whistle stop, wrong side of the tracks, and there are probably millions more.” My question is on the term “The whole nine yards.” I looked it up on the internet and the the consensus was that it is a term from the mid-to-early 60’s. I remember my Old Man using the term from in the 50’s. While asking around from some old timers I know, one came up with the originality coming from the length of rail (27 ft. which is nine yards). I was wondering if anyone might have some input on the origination of it, if indeed it did come from the railroad.
Great question! I hope you get some intellegent answers. I do believe that what you say…27ft being nine yards…is one of the anwers attributed to the term. Let’s hear what others have to say.
I too remember the phrase going back into the 50’s and used by both my parents, so I have doubts about the 60’s origin. One explanation I did find interesting was of a military origin. The term was used in a government hearing in 1942 about the use of an industrial plant manufacturing for the war and not utilizing all 9 of its facilities. During the was the ammo belt used by the air corps in machine guns was 27 feet, if they were ordered to use the whole nine yards that meant shoot it up. The term then grew in popularity. So maybe our parents and that generation from the big war brought it into everyday life. I found no information or even mentioning any relationship to railroads as to its origin.
Jim: I can’t speak to the other quotes, but I grew up with an uncle in the roofing and construction trades that used the term. " The whole nine yards" to describe virtually all individual efforts that required a maximum output of energy or the full use of available materials to complete a job. He may have picked it up while in the Army in WWII, but I cannot be sure of its origin.
Since you labeled the thread Phrases,Sayings and such.
I would offer up a couple of railroad-origin terms " Jerkwater Town" or “Tank Town”. Used to dercribe a very small town or location. ( largely perjorative terms.)
The origin of the term was when railroads required water tanks for the steam loco’s alon the lines. A lot of the locations seemed to sprout other than railroad comercial enterprises and even a few towns grew up around the water tanks. The locomotive would spot the tender under the water tank and the fireman would pull the lanyard (jerk) attached to the spout, dropping the spout into the manhole on the water tank. It is still around in the trucking bsiness and society to describe a really small town, or loca
A couple of terms that popped into my head were derail and head of steam. Such as: “The sight of the waiter slipping on a banana peel derailed our group’s conversation” and “You need to get up a good head of steam to jump that creek.”
I have heard the that the length of the machine gun belts of WWII fighter planes was the source of the whole nine yards.
My take on the, “Whole nine yards,” thing referred to the capacity of an overhead hopper for loading gravel into trucks. Apparently it had a series of sub-hoppers, so the question was, “Do you want three yards, five yards, seven yards or the whole nine yards?”
And with all due respect to Google, that was told to me (actually to my father, an artillery officer) by an Army engineer several months before Pearl Harbor. Since I was four years old at the time, I didn’t know I should have recorded names, dates and places for some future academic citation.