American Phrases

Urbane Guerrilla · 11-13-2006, 11:06 PM

There are all sorts of explanations for "the whole nine yards" and about all of them miss fire on some inconvenient point...

The standard full load for a cement mixer truck is ten cubic yards, not nine.

There was a rather durable story that the ammunition load for the wing guns of the P-51 Mustang fighter was a nine-yard belt of .50 caliber for each of six guns, and there are a few photos of ground crewmen schlepping a belt of the stuff that looks durn near nine yards total, but then some iconoclast went and did some measuring or interviewing.

11-13-2006, 11:06 PM	#11
Urbane Guerrilla Person who doesn't update the user title Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Southern California Posts: 6,674	There are all sorts of explanations for "the whole nine yards" and about all of them miss fire on some inconvenient point... The standard full load for a cement mixer truck is ten cubic yards, not nine. There was a rather durable story that the ammunition load for the wing guns of the P-51 Mustang fighter was a nine-yard belt of .50 caliber for each of six guns, and there are a few photos of ground crewmen schlepping a belt of the stuff that looks durn near nine yards total, but then some iconoclast went and did some measuring or interviewing. __________________ Wanna stop school shootings? End Gun-Free Zones, of course.

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