The origin of a cliché is a bottomless pit on a dark and stormy night, but I was tickled by The New York Times’s recent addition to the trove of lore concerning the whole nine yards. This one is apparently the deepest of all secrets, the windingest of all labyrinths. Yards, after all, can refer to two-dimensional measure (yards of cloth); three-dimensional measure (yards of concrete); playing fields (baseball yards); a spar on a sailing mast; and degree of achievement (gaining yards in football). The origin of the phrase, thought to have been coined in 1970, has now been traced back to the 1910s—but surprise! It was only six yards then.
To follow the theory behind this discovery and the ways in which amateur etymologists are reconciling it with their nine-yard theories, I refer you to the Times article. Of most interest to me is the possibility of inflation. However “the whole …