QUIZ: "The whole nine yards"

Here's a WWII quiz for you...
What is the origin of the phrase "the whole nine yards"?
Good luck

 

its come from the 9 yrds of ammo held in a WW2 fighter planes wings dosnt it ?

 

Very good private - you should be promoted to corporal immediately!
I don't know about fighters, but I am told (by a vet from the Evergreen Aviation museum in McMinneville, Oregon) that the nine-yard belt was used by the gunners in the B-17's. I presume it would be the same in a B-24 also.
You get to climb inside the B-17 at the museum and handle the waist-guns, plus climb around the ball turret and make your way up to the radioman's position just behind the bomb-bay. It was VERY cold over Europe at 25,000 feet!
Congrats!

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Whole_Nine_Yards
Nope. Common myth.
There's few other sites that look at this and discuss it but they dismiss the ammo belt theory.
http://www.google.co.uk/search?client=f ... gle+Search

 

Just going by what a vet told me..

 

Yeah. It's funny, that phrase crops up quite a bit in quizes (I used to do tons of pub quizes :lol: ). And they all gave that answer. But one day I accidentally came across a web site that discussed the etymology of common phrases (did you know for example that "cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey" is not "rude" at all - look it up. I'll explain if you can't find it).
But lots of people claim it's the ammo links. Or golf, or football, or burial shroud. It's weird how things get turned into something "everyone" knows.
Sorry, didn't post it to be nasty - just for information and I was on limited time.

 

No problem Oli, and the vet might have been young enough to have served into the '60's where Wikipedia stated that the expression most likely was used.
Another vet served aboard a "jeep carrier" (CVE) during 1945, and he was definately older come to think of it...

 

B-17 tail turret

One more question for all, the ammo belts reminded me:
On the B-17 (or B-25 also?) what was the angular field of fire for the tail guns? It seems very limited compared to the rotating British tail turrets, or the B-24 turret, which I think rotated similarly.
Thanks!

 

O.K. So if it's not ammo belts, then what is it ?

 

Annoyingly nobody seems to have tracked it down yet...
Quick one on the ammo belts though. 9 yards = 27 feet = 324 inches. Call a fifty cal cartridge and link, say, 3/4 of an inch and that gives 432 rounds - not that many really - so an ammo belt would be more than nine yards...

 

Please don't tell me the ammo belt answer is a myth!
I always beleived it was the length of the belt in a WW1 Vickers MG.

 

I searched for it and found no real answer for it (only something about a brash plate and cannonballs...but that seems to be a fake)

"The little feller, now, is smart’s a whip, an’ could talk the tail off a brass monkey"

http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-bra1.htm
http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/b/brassmonkeys.htm
http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/cold ... onkey.html

 

Why do you think that is fake?

 

According to the Royal Naval museum at Portsmouth the brass plate story is true - and these square plates are visible on HMS Victory.
The boys were called powder monkeys (because originally the younger ones were often sent up the rigging and climbed like monkeys), and then "monkey" was used as a term to describe a sailor's helper.

 

Ricky did you read those links (and that last line...see below)?

According to the United States Navy Historical Center, this is a legend of the sea without historical justification. The center has researched this because of the questions it gets and says the term "brass monkey" and a vulgar reference to the effect of cold on the monkey's extremities, appears to have originated in the book "Before the Mast" by C.A. Abbey. It was said that it was so cold that it would "freeze the tail off a brass monkey." The Navy says there is no evidence that the phrase had anything to do with ships or ships with cannon balls.

and especially this part makes me think it's a fake:

For those wanting a bit more detail, here's the science bit. The coefficient of expansion of brass is 0.000019; that of iron is 0.000012. If the base of the stack were one metre long the drop in temperature needed to make the 'monkey' shrink relative to the balls by just one millimetre, would be around 100 degrees Celcius. It is hardly credible that amount of change would have the slightest effect. In any case in weather like that the sailors would probably have better things to think about.

The real origin is not so fanciful. If you've heard the phrase 'hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil' you are probably familiar with the sets of sculptured brass monkey figures that have used as paperweights since at least the early 20th century. The term brass monkey itself has been in use that long too, as in The Story of Waitstill Baxter, Kate Wiggin, 1913:

"The little feller, now, is smart’s a whip, an’ could talk the tail off a brass monkey".


Or maybe there is another explanation? :-?