The Whole Nine Yards
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Image:The Whole Nine Yards DVD.jpg
The Whole Nine Yards is a black comedy starring Matthew Perry, Bruce Willis, Amanda Peet, Natasha Henstridge, Michael Clarke Duncan and Rosanna Arquette.
Oz (Perry) is a depressed American dentist working and living in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. His wife (Arquette) hates him and wants him dead, and so does his mother-in-law. Both of them would rather collect from Oz's life insurance.
Jimmy "The Tulip" Tudeski (Willis), a hitman, moves in next door and immediately makes friends with Oz, but it is hard to determine whether Jimmy would still kill him if he was paid enough. This is tested as Oz's wife sends him on a journey to Janni Gogolak in Chicago to rat out on Jimmy's whereabouts and collect a finder's fee.
A sequel entitled The Whole Ten Yards, was released on April 9, 2004.
Origin
The phrase "the whole nine yards" means "completely, the whole, everything" - e.g.:
"I was mugged. They took my wallet, my keys, my shoes, my coat - the whole nine yards!"
The origins of the expression are unknown, but various theories are popularly held as to the root of it. One of the more common of these is that the expression dates from the Second World War, where the "nine yards" was the full length of a machine-gun ammunition belt, and to "go the full nine yards" was to use it up in its entirety. The expression, however, has only been dated back to 1966 (in U.S. Air Force slang recorded in Vietnam) and it is unlikely it could have been in common use in the 1940s without being recorded either then or in the next twenty years.
The phrase could also be attributed to the tailoring industry, in which a quality suit of clothing required nine yards of material. To tailor a quality suit "takes the whole nine yards."
Other suggested origins have included sources as diverse as the size of cement mixers, the length of bridal veils, the manufacture of kilts, the length of cloth bolts, and the structure of certain sailing vessels (where "yard" is short for yardarm, not for the distance).
Another explanation is that the term is a sarcastic reference to American football, where ten yards is the length of a first down. With running nine yards being no real achievement, to say that someone ran 'the whole nine yards' would be to say that they almost achieved something.