The Whole Nine Yards

The article "The whole nine yards about a phrase’s origin" (Tuesday Star, pg D4) is proof positive that in a digital age characterized by a media attention span measured in milliseconds, any fact not commonly accessible to folks with access to the Internet by consensus couldn't possibly have existed in any other medium or any earlier period of time.

 

Take the phrase in question: "the whole nine yards".  The New York Times couldn't source it any further back than the turn of the 20th century, nor propose any plausible source of origin other than baseball.  That's funny because, being an avid consumer of what Blank Reg of the epic TV series Max Headroom referred to as a "non-volatile storage medium" - otherwise known as books - I can reference at least two pre-Internet sources for the phrase, dating back from a few to several hundred years. 

 

Citing historical novelist Patrick O'Brian, the meaning is proposed to be a reference to the three main sails of the three masts of a square-rigged ship dating back as early as the 17th century.  And while I can't instantly produce a source, I have read various books on the origins of the English language that propose that "yards" is a term referring to the defensive perimeters set up around a town in medieval times, and the necessity of an invader to breach "the whole nine yards" in order to capture the town. 

 

Ironically, some small amount of research will find both of these sources are readily available on the Internet.

 

Pete Smith

Cypress