Question of the Day #5: The whole nine yards

"I bought a new flat screen TV and an awesome home theater system; essentially the whole nine yards".

上記の文で、the whole nine yardsは、どういう意味？

In the sentence above, what does "the whole nine yards" mean?

答えは、コメントに書いてください。
Write your answer in the Comments.

明日、ここに答えを書きます。
I will write the answer and other remarks here tomorrow.

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解答

意味： 何もかも、全て、一切合切、意味: 全て、何処までも

Answer:

the entire amount, everything, as far as possible

語源：

印刷物で確認できる限り（下記、英語参照）このフレーズが初めて使われたのは、1907年のインディアナ州のThe Mitchell Commercial新聞 。しかし、語源となると様々な説があり、多くが否定され、これというはっきりしたものがない。語源とされるものに、下記のものがある。

• 高級紳士服を作るための生地の長さ
• コンクリートミキサー車が搭載できるコンクリートの量
• １９世紀の大型帆船の帆桁(yard)の数
• 土葬で使用する土の量
• 第二次世界大戦の機関銃の装弾ベルトの長さ

より詳しい説明を読みたい方は、下記英文を参照してください。

Etymology:

There are many theories about the origin of the phrase "the whole nine yards" (and you can find most of them in the Snopes article that my friend, Cathy Thomas, has linked to in the Comments below), but none have been verified. However, there is one story that rings true, but it still doesn't tell us exactly what "the whole nine yards" refers to.

According to The Phrase Finder:

The earliest known example of the phrase in print that I know of is from an Indiana newspaper The Mitchell Commercial, 2nd May 1907:


This afternoon at 2:30 will be called one of the baseball games that will be worth going a long way to see. The regular nine is going to play the business men as many innings as they can stand, but we can not promise the full nine yards.

It appeared again in the same paper the following year, on 4th June 1908:

...Roscoe went fishing and has a big story to tell, but we refuse to stand while he unloads, He will catch some unsuspecting individual some of these days and give him the whole nine yards.

The meaning of 'the whole nine yards' in the above citations is clear, that is, as we use it now, 'the whole thing/the full story'. Oddly, and even though it was well enough known in Indiana in 1907 to have appeared several times in newspapers without the authors feeling the need to explain it, the expression seems to have disappeared from view for another 50 years or so.

Examples

• For you I'll go the whole nine yards.
• When you join the gym, they show you all the equipment, tell you how to use it, the whole nine yards.
• This home has ‘the whole nine yards’ in convenience.
• The mountain trail was a difficult one, but I wanted to go the whole nine yards.
• The story was interesting, but we had to leave midway. We didn’t get the whole nine yards.