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Whole nine yards
Comes from World War II fighter pilots, whose planes typically were
outfitted with enough machine-gun ammunition to extend 27 feet. If a pilot
expended all his ammunition on a mission, he would say, "I gave them
the
whole nine yards".
A site visitor also wrote in with his/her explaination
of this idiom:
You might want to check out the older origin of the term" whole nine
yards", the original term comes from the Scottish Great Kilt. The
amount of wool for a full Great Kilt is a "whole nine yards".
another site visitor also wrote in with this:
Whole nine yards refers to the total amount of concrete held by a concrete
truck. Concrete is measured in the unit 'yards'. The truck holds a total
of nine yards of concrete. When all the concrete was needed they would
say, give me the Whole nine yards.
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