"The Whole Nine Yards"

The expression "the whole nine yards" is commonly used as an exaggeration (mostly in the South). People will say things like, "I had to go through the whole nine yards to get on this plane!" It tells others that something has been done completely and thoroughly, but who said that first? 

The most well received origin to this clever little phrase is that in World War II the machine gun belts on planes were nine yards long and when they landed the would say that they had used the whole nine yards of the belt! Where this may true it's been disproven as the actual origin of the phrase since records show it predates WWII..

So where did it start? The earliest documented use of the phrase appears in a newspaper article in 1907. It mentions that a baseball game will be called and the players will go as many innings as they can but they won't promise the whole nine yards. Apparently some clever sports writer just wanted a new way to say "the whole shebang" I guess.

So there you have it. The history of something you didn't even know had history!  

Taco