The Whole Nine Yards -- The Whole Bolt

[Richard Maurer]

The Whole Nine Yards -- The Whole Bolt

Here is something I have been working on.
It is not proof, but is a strong investigative lead.
The notion is that "the whole nine yards" was a
variation on "the whole bolt". A bolt of cloth
was nominally nine yards for many years.
(Unless there was another suitable sense of bolt,
but even so, folk etymology could have used
the cloth bolt sense.)

There has been discussion about the phrase coming from
dresses or kilts that used nine yards of cloth,
but here the emphasis is different, more general.


Taking tlio whole bolt together. It is found that thero
hag been no Increase In acreage, whilo tho condition ot
tho crop on May 111 was no better than thnt ...

The New York Times (Newspaper) - June 10, 1884,
Subscription - NewspaperArchie


As wo said in our report of yesterday, he figures
tho general docroaso in acreage at per cent
for the whole bolt.

Galveston Daily News, The (Newspaper) -
November 4, 1892, Subscription - NewspaperArchie


The govurmnaxit baa decided to bring thd whole bolt
under the prwlslonB of the reguluttona adopted In July
last for tbo dovelopmont of corundum Iand0t and ...

The Hopewell Herald (Newspaper) - December 28, 1898
Subscription - NewspaperArchie - Dec 28, 1898


At leant that wus what she had beers general sentiments
of the office when he she was the "whole bolt of goods."
"And its a scod thing for ua fel- lers that ...

The Daily Northwestern (Newspaper) - December 23, 1912
Oshkosh, Subscription - NewspaperArchie


"I'd 'a bin mighty glad if Pud yer had er took airter
pa's famerly, but frum the tip eend er her toe nails
to the toppermust ha'r of her head she's a Wornum.
Hit ain't on'y thes a streak yer an' a stripe thar--
hit's the whole bolt. I reckon maybe you know'd
ole Jedge June Wornum; well, Jedge June he was
Pud's gran'pa, an' Deely Wornum was her ma. Maybe you
might 'a seed Deely when she was a school-gal."

Mingo And Other Sketches in Black and White
by Joel Chandler Harris
1899
http://infomotions.com/etexts/gutenberg/dirs/1/9/6/4/19648/19648.htm.

-- ---------------------------------------------
Richard Maurer To reply, remove half
Sunnyvale, California of a homonym of a synonym for also.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
(We only use fresh clichés, importanted daily)

[John Dean]

Post by Richard Maurer
The Whole Nine Yards -- The Whole Bolt
Here is something I have been working on.
It is not proof, but is a strong investigative lead.
The notion is that "the whole nine yards" was a
variation on "the whole bolt". A bolt of cloth
was nominally nine yards for many years.
(Unless there was another suitable sense of bolt,
but even so, folk etymology could have used
the cloth bolt sense.)

I think stage one would be to prove (and it should be easy, shouldn't it?)
that a bolt of cloth was indeed nine yards.
OED won't help you because it says of bolt "8. A roll of woven fabric:
generally of a definite length; being, in various cases, 30 yards, 28 ells,
or 40 feet."
The Dent Dictionary of Measurement says of 'bolt' that it was 28 ells (35
yards) "in former centuries" but is now 30 yards in the UK and 40 yards in
the USA.

[Donna Richoux]

Post by John Dean

Post by Richard Maurer
The Whole Nine Yards -- The Whole Bolt
Here is something I have been working on.
It is not proof, but is a strong investigative lead.
The notion is that "the whole nine yards" was a
variation on "the whole bolt". A bolt of cloth
was nominally nine yards for many years.
(Unless there was another suitable sense of bolt,
but even so, folk etymology could have used
the cloth bolt sense.)

I think stage one would be to prove (and it should be easy, shouldn't it?)
that a bolt of cloth was indeed nine yards.
generally of a definite length; being, in various cases, 30 yards, 28 ells,
or 40 feet."
The Dent Dictionary of Measurement says of 'bolt' that it was 28 ells (35
yards) "in former centuries" but is now 30 yards in the UK and 40 yards in
the USA.

The items of clothes I sewed in my teens required anywhere from 1 1/2 to
3 yards of cloth, and the purchase of same barely made a dent on the
bolts in the store. So my instinctive reaction to Richard's statement
was that the bolts I knew had to contain far more than 9 yards of cloth.

Still nice to see the documentation about "the whole bolt of goods,"
though. At least that implies which kind of bolt, not hardware,
weaponry, timber, meteorological, or agricultural, but fabric.

[Prai Jei]

Richard Maurer set the following eddies spiralling through the space-time

Post by Richard Maurer
The Whole Nine Yards -- The Whole Bolt
Here is something I have been working on.
It is not proof, but is a strong investigative lead.
The notion is that "the whole nine yards" was a
variation on "the whole bolt". A bolt of cloth
was nominally nine yards for many years.
(Unless there was another suitable sense of bolt,
but even so, folk etymology could have used
the cloth bolt sense.)

The story I've heard is that a new ammunition belt for a certain type of
machine gun was nine yards long if laid out straight.

If it had been the Whole Ten Yards I would have immediately jumped to the
conclusion that it's something to do with American Football - a team on
"first down and 10" (whatever that is) gets far enough to be on "first down
and 10" again in a single move. But all my sources suggest that going the
Whole Nine Yards would not be enough in this context. (No please don't
explain further, I'm British and don't really understand the jargon.)

[Donna Richoux]

Prai Jei <***@zyx-abc.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:

[snip re The Whole Nine Yards]

Post by Prai Jei
The story I've heard is that a new ammunition belt for a certain type of
machine gun was nine yards long if laid out straight.

While checking the various summaries of "Whole nine yards" to see if
anyone had ever verified the ammo belt theory (no one has, although it
held up longer than most of the others), I find that a couple of highly
respected experts on American slang turned up what may be *the*
explanation two or three years ago. If anyone mentioned this in a.u.e, I
missed it.

Barry Popik, who runs the "Big Apple" site on New York terms and other
slang, found a quotation of a US Navy pilot, Richard A. Stratton, using
the phrase in 1973. Stratton had just been released as a prisoner of
war, held by the North Vietnamese since 1967. He's not only still alive,
he has an online presence, and so Popik asked him about the phrase.
Stratton remembered it deriving from a bawdy song from his time at the
Navy School of Preflight, Pensacola, Florida, 1955. (This time and place
is consistent with other early citations.) He describes the song here:

http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/the_scotsmans_ki
lt/
The Continuing Saga of the Courtship of Andrew MacTavish and Mary
Margaret MacDuff

What I find important is that Ben Zimmer, now of the OED, found a
Scottish song in the DigiTrad collection that has the same theme,
although the punchline is worded differently.

http://www.mudcat.org/@displaysong.cfm?SongID=8097
Angus and the Kilt

Here's a key verse, and I'll let you look up the rest yourself:

Well, Angus was in such a rush to show off for his bride,
He never really noticed that he had left his kilt behind.
He knocked upon her door and cried, "Oh, let me in, I pray!
I've something that you've got to see before our wedding day."

I suppose I have to remember that some comic songs that look
old-fashioned turn out to be only twenty or forty years old themselves.

[CDB]

Post by Donna Richoux
[snip re The Whole Nine Yards]

Post by Prai Jei
The story I've heard is that a new ammunition belt for a certain
type of machine gun was nine yards long if laid out straight.

While checking the various summaries of "Whole nine yards" to see if
anyone had ever verified the ammo belt theory (no one has, although
it held up longer than most of the others), I find that a couple of
highly respected experts on American slang turned up what may be
*the* explanation two or three years ago. If anyone mentioned this
in a.u.e, I missed it.
Barry Popik, who runs the "Big Apple" site on New York terms and
other slang, found a quotation of a US Navy pilot, Richard A.
Stratton, using the phrase in 1973. Stratton had just been released
as a prisoner of war, held by the North Vietnamese since 1967. He's
not only still alive, he has an online presence, and so Popik asked
him about the phrase. Stratton remembered it deriving from a bawdy
song from his time at the Navy School of Preflight, Pensacola,
Florida, 1955. (This time and place is consistent with other early
http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/the_scotsmans_ki
lt/
The Continuing Saga of the Courtship of Andrew MacTavish and Mary
Margaret MacDuff
What I find important is that Ben Zimmer, now of the OED, found a
Scottish song in the DigiTrad collection that has the same theme,
although the punchline is worded differently.
Angus and the Kilt

Well, Angus was in such a rush to show off for his bride,
He never really noticed that he had left his kilt behind.
He knocked upon her door and cried, "Oh, let me in, I pray!
I've something that you've got to see before our wedding day."

Post by Donna Richoux
I suppose I have to remember that some comic songs that look
old-fashioned turn out to be only twenty or forty years old
themselves.

Here's another verse, the last:

Now, when the cloak was thrown aside and Angus stood quite bare,
We must admit she was impressed and tried hard not to stare.
"Oh, love, I'll ne'er see finer, though far and far I roam!"
"Well, lass," he cried, "that's nothing! I've got eight more yards at
home!"

One of the things that makes the song more likely to be the origin of
the expression, IMO, is that it makes a pun on "yard" that is missing
from the other versions, although it might have been the allusion to
it that made the expression funny enough, originally, to catch on.

That second use of the word is somewhat old-fashioned in Southern
English, and I wonder if it is also outdated enough in Scottish
English to suggest that the song is older than forty.

[Donna Richoux]

[snip]

Post by CDB

Post by Donna Richoux
Barry Popik, who runs the "Big Apple" site on New York terms and
other slang, found a quotation of a US Navy pilot, Richard A.
Stratton, using the phrase in 1973. Stratton had just been released
as a prisoner of war, held by the North Vietnamese since 1967. He's
not only still alive, he has an online presence, and so Popik asked
him about the phrase. Stratton remembered it deriving from a bawdy
song from his time at the Navy School of Preflight, Pensacola,
Florida, 1955.

I thought I put the URL that had that info in my post, but I don't see
it. The above is from

http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/summary_capt_ric
hard_strattons_1955_attestation/

Post by CDB

Post by Donna Richoux
(This time and place is consistent with other early

http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/the_scotsmans_ki
lt/

I erred in calling it a song -- Stratton called "One of a series of
stories and songs enshrining the courtship of Andy and Mary Margaret."

Post by CDB

Post by Donna Richoux
The Continuing Saga of the Courtship of Andrew MacTavish and Mary
Margaret MacDuff
What I find important is that Ben Zimmer, now of the OED, found a
Scottish song in the DigiTrad collection that has the same theme,
although the punchline is worded differently.
Angus and the Kilt

[snip some verses, and my doubt because modern comic songs can be
written in traditional styles]

Post by CDB
One of the things that makes the song more likely to be the origin of
the expression, IMO, is that it makes a pun on "yard" that is missing
from the other versions, although it might have been the allusion to
it that made the expression funny enough, originally, to catch on.
That second use of the word is somewhat old-fashioned in Southern
English, and I wonder if it is also outdated enough in Scottish
English to suggest that the song is older than forty.

Unfortunately, "Angus and the Kilt" was written and recorded in 1991 by
Lolly Foy, an entertainer on the Renaissance fair circuit, according to
her. So it must have worked backwards from the "whole nine yards" idea.
Her name is even on the DigiTrad/mudcat page but I didn't recognize it.
The authorship is asserted on various pages, such as the credits on this
album:

http://www.chivalry.com/liza/saucy_jade.htm
All songs are traditional, except "Angus and the Kilt,"
written by Lolly Foy and Betsy Smith (WenchWorks),
© 1991 and Johnny Be Fine, © Buffy Ste. Marie.

(Johnny Be Fine is exactly the same sort of song, by the way: comic,
bawdy, and traditional in feel.)

We're back to the otherwise unknown anecdote "The Continuing Saga of
the Courtship of Andrew MacTavish and Mary Margaret MacDuff" (URL
above).