The Origins of Slang

[Keith]

10 Slang words/phrases and their surprising origins.

I love words and their origins - the problem is my word power is quite limited so I am always happy when these kind of articles pop up.

Fascinating!

BBC News - 10 slang phrases that perfectly sum up their era

 

[Jim Rosenthal]

I think "the whole nine yards" is indeed the capacity of a transit-mix concrete truck.

"Wicked" is New England slang for "good"- so well established that it is actually in the LLBean catalog, and they are to say the least not trendsetters.

 

[Larry L.]

I think "the whole nine yards" is indeed the capacity of a transit-mix concrete truck.

According to an article that appeared in the NYT some time ago, it actually is just another way of saying 'the whole shebang' and the like.

Originally (according to the article), the expression "The whole six yards" was used in a baseball context back in 1912(?) or so ("Yards" maybe having been used in that instance as a slang term for baseball fields).

The point being that, supposedly, no one really knows 'from whence' it originally came.

 

[Gus Richmond]

I thought 9 yards was the length of a bullet belt in a Mustang or Spitfire. When strafing the enemy if they emptied the whole belt into a target or targets they got "the whole 9 yards".

I suspect I will get corrected on this as there are some lads on this forum who will most likely know what munitions these planes do take.

Cheers, Gus.