I've got it!!! I just figured out the true meaning behind the whole nine yards! What a revelation! OK. Sit back and listen, for I will now reveal the truth to you:

It's really quite simple. One day there was a big home football game. Among the fans was an enthusiastic dingbat admiring all the players on the field, a dingbat clueless about football, but really a sincere admirer of how all those hulks covered in their shoulder plates of armour could move across the field like ballerinas. She was in awe!

Then, at one telling point in the game, seeing that her team was only nine yards from making a touchdown (actually it was ten yards, but she'd been very confused about the measurement between those lines), she shouted out something like, "Battuh, battuh, battuh, battuh...!" And when the winning touchdown was scored, she shouted, "He went the whole nine yards!" A reporter, taking notes beside her, asked, "May I quote you?" She batted her eyes at him, and said, "Why certainly! I'm their biggest fan, you know!" And, as in the case of, "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus," her words went down in sports history forever.

And that, my friends, is the explanation behind THE WHOLE NINE YARDS. You heard it first here on A.Word.A.Day's Wordplay and Fun!

From one of many shining points of illumination,
OrB~