Where does the expression ''''the whole nine yards'''' come from? | Notes and Queries

Where does the expression ''the whole nine yards'' come from?

Roger Hudson, Brampton, Canada

• The bullets for the machine guns used in American combat planes of WW2 and since were in chains twenty-seven feet in length. Thus if a pilot was able to fire all his bullets off at one target he was said to have given his adversary 'the full nine yards'.

  Stephen Pepper, Kingston upon Thames, UK

• I have heard this is a reference to the strip of bullets for some kind of machine gun (Gatling gun?). Sorry, don't know the correct name for this, but the length of the strip was 9 yards, & the expression derives from using up all the bullets at once - hence 'the whole nine yards'.

  Jane Mandeville, Nashville TN USA

• During the Second World War, gunners were armed with an ammunition belt which was 27 feet long. To use the whole belt on the enemy was to go the whole nine yards. At least, that's the version I've heard...

  Alasdair Patrick, Lake Forest, California USA

• The situation isn't as cut and dried as the previous correspondence may indicate. There's no definitive evidence in favour of the gunbelt theory, any more so than any of the other supposed explanations involving the amount of cloth necessary to make any of a number of items of apparel, the volume of a cement mixer, etc. If the second world war thoery has any substance, it does seem odd that the earliest written use of the expression seems not to have occurred until the late 50s.

  Brian Harrison, Basingstoke, UK

• The situation isn't as cut and dried as the previous correspondence may indicate. There's no definitive evidence in favour of the gunbelt theory, any more so than any of the other supposed explanations involving the amount of cloth necessary to make any of a number of items of apparel, the volume of a cement mixer, etc etc. If the second world war thoery has any substance, it does seem odd that the earliest written use of the expression seems not to have occurred until the late 50s.

  Brian Harrison, Basingstoke UK

• Mr Harrison's second answer seems to go the full two etcs.

  Peter Lucas, Birmingham, UK

• In American Football each team must gain ten yards to recycle their possession. Starting at one they have four passages of play in which to do this. Getting from there to the ten-yard line in one play is called "the whole nine yards".

  Colm Larkin, Dublin Ireland