| 词源 |
whole nine yards. For at least 45 years this expression has meant “all of it, everything,” as in “Give me the whole nine yards.” It did not arise in the garment business but possibly among construction workers, the nine yards referring to the maximum capacity a cement-mixer truck can carry—nine cu- bic yards of cement. There is no firm proof of this or any other derivation, however. But other unproved suggestions include cloth length in suit manufacture, the old phrase dressed to the nines (qv), football yardage, the customary length of a burial shroud among Appalachian people, and nine as a perfect number in numerology. |