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[quote]QUOTE: Originally posted by jhhtrainsplanes But does anyone know the origin of the phrase, "The whole 9 yards" ? [?][/quote] I've heard three different versions of the origin. All seem to be equally believable. 1. Old style cement trucks carried 9 cubic yards of cement. So if you wanted a truckload of cement you wanted "the whole 9 yards." 2. Bolts of cloth are 9 yards long. So if you want a complete bolt then you want "the whole 9 yards." 3. .50 cal machine guns in WW2 fighter aircraft had ammunition belts that were nine yards long, so if you fired off all your ammunition then you had shot off "the whole 9 yards." As to which one of these, if any, is right, "you pays your money and you takes your chance." [quote]QUOTE: Another good military trivia question is about the "Brass Monkey" and the phrase "Cold enough to freeze the balls off a Brass Monkey".[/quote] If this is the old wheeze about iron cannon balls in a brass rack, the rack being called a "monkey" or "brass monkey," let me assure you that it's not even a urban myth. It is what is technically called "silliness." I have been aboard two warships from the Age of Sail (when ships were made out of wood and men were made out of steel), HMS Victory and USS Constitution. Both of them had cannon ball racks made out of wood, not out of brass. Wood is much cheaper than brass, it's easier to work with, and it is uneffected by temperature. The myth that the brass rack would contract more than the iron cannonballs and "freeze the balls off the brass monkey" is actually true. Of course, the temperature needed would be lower than -100°F (-87°C), and stray cannon balls would be the least of the crew's worries. One last point. Sailors and shipbuilders are not stupid, and if cannon balls jumping out of racks was common, they would have come up with some solution for the problem, like making the racks out of wood. This solution would have happened within a matter of hours after the problem occurred. Edited because I messed up converting Fahrenheit to Celsius.
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