Thursday, September 24, 2009

I Got the Whole Nine Yards, Scot Free

Nine well-known phrases whose origin most people get wrong.

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posted by Chas S. Clifton at 5:49 PM Permalink

2 Comments:

Anonymous Robert Mathiesen said...

A simple google book search on "nine yards" and "shroud" turns up a very early example of "nine yards cotton shrouds" in a list of goods for sale. Also, in 1958 Manly Wade Wellman writes of "nine yards of other cloth / to make a shroud." And, so far as I can trust my own memory, I've been using "the whole nine yards" since the 1950s.

8:19 AM  
Blogger Mark Churchill said...

My brother claims "the whole nine yards" comes from the amount of fabric required for a traditional ("Braveheart" era) Scottish kilt. FWIW...

5:43 PM  

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