6 Terms You Won’t Believe Have Military Origins

6.) “The whole nine yards”

Loading up a P-51 Mustang.

This term appeared in the 1950s, after the end of World War II — and it has nothing to do with football or anything else where yardage is a factor. It refers to the length of the ammunition belts designed for American and British fighter planes during the war, 27 feet (or nine yards). When flying a particularly tough mission or otherwise using a lot of ammo, a pilot might have been said to use “the whole nine yards.”

This article originally appeared on We Are The Mighty

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