Where did the phrase “the whole 9 yards” come from?
The origin of the phrase is not known. One of the most common explanations is that it dates from the Second World War, where “nine yards” was the length of an aircraft machine-gun ammunition belt, and to “go the full nine yards” was to use it up entirely. Machine gun belts were 27 feet long. The expression has been reliably dated back only to early 1964, in U.S. Space Program slang.[1] It was also apparently popular among Air Force personnel in Vietnam.[2] By November 1967 it was recorded in use in the U.S. Army, likewise from Vietnam, and by mid-1969 was appearing in newspaper advertisements in the United States.[3] The first citation in the Oxford English Dictionary is from 1970, in the magazine Word Watching.[4] The earliest known use of the phrase dates from 1942, in the Investigation of the National Defense Program: Hearings Before a Special Committee Investigating the National Defense Program[5], by Admiral Emory Scott Land. Land said: “You have to increase from 7.72 to 12 for th
