Do you know your WORD-PHRASE Origin TRIVIA?

[GNEPIG]

Stop your pissing and moaning

Gonorrhea is common venereal disease that causes a burning sensation while urinating. There are plenty of stories and jokes about the "clap", as it is called, and moaning from the pain caused by the burn.

[Jerry]

Jerry:
Check out
http://www.snopes.com/cokelore/cokelore.asp

I stand corrected! Coke was never green.

[Czekus21]

Not a saying but a well known name.
GMC
Now a days, everyone knows this as General Motors Corp. But, After visiting the Murdo, South Dakota Pioneer Auto Show Museum, AND the Trivia Pursute game, I now know the origin.
Back in 1902, a company was started in Michigan making strickly trucks. Known as the Graboski Motor Company ( GMC ) which by the way was also the first American truck company. They were eventually swallowed up by the big General.

Aslo, kdina lekid the way we can raed wrdos by hvaenig olny the fsrit and lsat lteters werhe tehy need to go...

[SiP]

TC is right about 'bloody' and it used to be considered a swear word because the lady it refers to is Mary the mother of Jesus, over the years it has lost it's potency.
I went through a number of comments to write down next, but not knowing the religous beliefs of my fellow XSers I don't want to offend anyone.

Seasonally topical - Boxing Day! So called becaude Xmas Day was for church and such like, it was considered very naughty to do something as mercenary as recieve presents on a day that should be spent in worship. So, Boxing Day was the day to open your "boxes".

Can't think of any more right now but have had a few beers and am sat in a hotel in Nisku unable to keep my eyes open.

[wa407mpp]

GMC-General Motors Canada, where GMC pick-ups and trucks are made. that's why they are rated heavier duty then chevys,to survive the rougher terrain.

[John]

Everybody knows

That a GMC is just a Chevy with lock washers.

[webbcraft2150]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by 81xsproject
[B]The whole 9 yards refers to (and don't quote me on the details) the lengths of ammunition used be air craft during WW1/2. It came in 9 yard lengths.


Give the man a see-gar!!!

P40 Warhawks used ammo belts 9 yards in length. During a debriefing session , a particular pilot (name unknown) was giving details of his kill, I gave him the "whole nine yards" before he went down he was quoted as saying. I got this info from a elderly gentleman who actually flew P40's. The rest is history (another one for someone to figure out where it came from.

[mro]

Some what off topic but a good read anyway...
Scroll down to "George S Welch"
story below black/white P40B pic
http://die-cast-army.over-blog.com/a...-13807276.html

mro
have not been able to confirm ammo belt story

[Jerry]

9 yards was also the length of the Supermarine Spitfire ammo belts, so I have heard, and a variation is that the phrase originated with a Spitfire pilot. IIRC the Spitfire was in service before the P-40.

Another variation is is attributed to the length of the machine gun belts for Browing machine guns used in WWI.

Problem with the ammo belt origin, and several others, is that there is no recorded use of the phrase "the whole nine yards" until at least 1955. This according to those who study word and phrase origins, or etymologyists. In fact, most researchers date the phrase to the Vietnam War:

Quote:

The most probable source of the phrase is the US military - that's where many early references to the phrase originate.

The earliest such military reference is from the 1960s, in Elaine Shepard's novel about the Vietnam War - The Doom Pussy (A narrative about the Vietnam War and the men who are fighting it). The book was first published in 1967 and recounts army life during the early 1960s.

The whole nine yards is used several times in the book, principally by the character Major 'Smash' Crandell.

Close quote.

Here are another couple possibilities:

Quote:
It is possible that the phrase was coined by servicemen in Vietnam. One possible source for this would be the Montagnard hill tribes, who were known by the US forces as 'the Yards'. In 1970, the US author Robert L. Mole published The Montagnards of South Vietnam: A Study of Nine Tribes. Some reports suggest that these nine tribes are the source of the 'nine' in TWNY; other US service memoirs claim that Special Operations Group teams consisted of three US soldiers and nine Yards. The disparity in these reports gives some cause for caution, but it could be that the phrase did originate in Vietnam and that Elaine Shepard picked it up as force's jargon while researching for her book.

The military are also the source of the majority of hearsay accounts of the phrase's source. Many of these are of the 'I was there' variety and carry more authority than the usual, and frankly unhelpful, 'I was told' stories. Having spent some time researching this phrase I have received many such reports from servicemen (usually U.S. servicemen). One such example is from a U.S. drill sergeant who claims that the phrase originated in Fort Benning, Georgia, where soldiers were trained in the 'three-second rush'. This involved running nine yards in three seconds before diving to ground to avoid sniper fire. Of all the explanations I've heard this one seems to me to be the most believable and certainly fits the phrase's meaning, although without documentary evidence it is just another plausible story.

Close quote.

In short, no one knows exactly when and where the phrase originated. Theories and stories abound, but none can be proven or documented as the genuine original source.

[HobbyMan]

I can't prove it but what do I know? MY best friend in elementary school had a grandfather in WW2 . He was a fighter pilot in the Army Air Corps. I do remember asking this question to his grandfather at one time and he said that there were nine yards of ammo in the wings. He claimed to have been using this phrase since WW2 but I don't know. He past away a few years back so maby we will never know. It seems logical because there were sometimes more than one gun in a wing. From photos, it looks like the p47 had 3 guns in each gun pod.

[Roy Bean]

"Balls Out", The governor on a stean locomotive used balls that spun. When you had the Balls Out i guess you were bumping the governor.
The whole nine yards.
I have read a lot of book old books dating back to the 19th century and i have run across the prase "the whole nine yards" refering to the making of a gentlemans suit. There would be no short cuts on a suit made with "the whole nine yards"It would be a sign of the expence the suit.

[TopCatGr58]

I'm sure many of these timely phrases have military origins since WW2 was a big slice of time and activity for Americans.

Balls to the walls according to that site is a pilot's phrase, the throttle controls have balls on the ends for easy grip/control and when you were giving it the full throttle, you had the throttle lever "balls" as far forward against the front wall/dash as you could!
T.C.