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The whole nine yards" or "the full nine yards" is a colloquial American English phrase meaning "everything, the whole lot" or, when used as an adjective, "all the way". [1] Its first usage was the punch line of an 1855 Indiana comedic short story titled "The Judge's Big Shirt".
Whole nine yards: The actual origin of the phrase "the whole nine yards" is a mystery, and nearly all claimed explanations are easily proven false. Incorrect explanations include the length of machine gun belts, the capacity of concrete mixers (in cubic yards), various types of fabric, and many other explanations.
I believe the origin of the phrase, “the whole nine yards” came from the crew of the B-17 bombers of WWII when they would say, “give them the whole nine yards” as it represented the length of the 50 Cal belt that fed their machine-guns, which is 27ft long, a la, nine yards.
These are not merely catchy sayings. Even though some sources may identify a phrase as a catchphrase, this list is for those that meet the definition given in the lead section of the catchphrase article and are notable for their widespread use within the culture. This list is distinct from the list of political catchphrases.
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The phrase could also come from the idea of race horses "breaking their legs" (AKA how they're standing) at the starting line, which some riders believed was good luck and would lead to a good race.
The 22-year-old rookie has just completed 16 of his 27 passes for 274 yards, throwing for a touchdown, no interceptions and a 106.1 passer rating as his Texans narrowly beat the Denver Broncos.
"To go the whole nine yards" "A cat has nine lives" "To be on cloud nine" The word "K-9" pronounces the same as canine and is used in many US police departments to denote the police dog unit. Despite not sounding like the translation of the word canine in other languages, many police and military units around the world use the same designation.