R.I.P. Scout26
Ladies and gentlemen, the Eloi Breeding Program enters its final phase. After we have prohibited our youth from handling guns, we will now prohibit them from actually looking at guns.
don't let them know about the breeding program.
Nevermind that the Olympics are a primitive martial competition to begin with. Javelin, shot put, discus, wrestling, archery, tae kwon do, judo, boxing, fencing, et cetera.
But Danny Bryan, founder of Communities Against Gun and Knife Crime said: "I agree with Boris. It is good kids should enjoy the Games but there's no way we should glorify guns."
Back when I was in college, a friend wrote an essay about how someday, the PC-types would rule the world, and even gun-related language would be banned. Phrases like "going off half-cocked," "the whole 9 yeards", and such would be banned as offensivly violent language. The lib prof flunked him on the paper, of course. Now...maybe a prediction for the future?
How is "the whole 9 yards" a violent phrase?
http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/the-whole-nine-yards.htmlInteresting read.
Interesting read, but the author (being a literary person) looked for the instances in print, rather than an obvious method which was to see if any of the possibilities (e.g. Ammo belt) actually WERE 9 yards.For example, according to Wikipedia, the inner two M2's on a p-51D had 400 rounds of ammunition each, the outer four guns 270 rnds The base diameter of a 50BMG is about 0.8" and in a belt they are 0.4" apart. 400 rounds is thus 480" and 270 rounds, 270-324". Since 9 yards is 324", it seems REALLY FREAKIN COINCIDENTAL that the p-51's were carrying around 9 yards of ammo for 2/3rds of their armament, and since all the guns fired, the "whole nine yards" meant the outer guns would be dry. (btw, the spitfire used 303cal belts and 20mm drums, so that doesn't work). Since none of the other explanations actually match up, why not conclude print is dumb and the most used explanation is actually the real one?
Ban reversed.
For the term not to appear in print for twenty years after it's supposed coinage is a rather damning critique of that theory. With the myriad of reports, memoirs and books written about WWII, isn't it rather likely the term would have turned up in at least one of them?
How many of the memoirs were written by p-51 pilots between 1946 and 1964? It's entirely possible that they used the term among themselves, and their children or others picked it up and used it in the vernacular of the day much later...perhaps they felt it was inappropriate to use as a metaphor? Who knows. My point isn't that the p-51 answer IS the right one, but it, coincidentally is the only one of the explanations that actually matches the saying (unlike the spitfire one, the cement one, and the tailor one)...so rather than discount it's introduction by literary search, why not assume that the missing information is on the literary side, rather than on the origin.