Nine Yards, I have heard all sorts of basics for this. My favorite? A ship rigged sailing vessel, has three masts, each with three square sails. The top bit of wood is called a yard. In the days of fighting sail, people would try a fake out the other guy. Most of the battle would be jocking for position, so when the ship changed directions, the yards had to be trimed for the new wind direction. So shifting all the sail was to commit all nine yards.

I have also heard the 9 yard referance to length of a machine gun belt in the WWII fighters, So when they shot "the whole 9 yards." they were out of ammo. However, I thinkg the sailing referance is older.

My favorite miss heard is "There is a bathroom on the right". Very handy but the song really says, "There is a bad moon on the right." Hmmm, nice, indicating West bound here in the US. However now quite as usefull as all those bathrooms.

Fadac