IT has been linked with everything from the length of a Spitfire's machine gun belt to the amount of rubbish that would fill a corporation dust cart; from the volume of a rich man's grave to the length of a hangman's noose.

Give 'em enough rope..?

How, as last week's column intractably and insolubly wondered, are we to explain the phrase about "Going the whole nine yards"?

"Of all the feedback we get, this is the one that causes most disagreement," notes a phraseology website located by Colin Jones in Spennymoor.

After the poser about the third English word ending in "gry", adds another etymological site - thanks to Geoff Fletcher in Thornton-le-Beans, near Northallerton - it is the most common question on the English language.

Maybe it is, but still no one has a satisfactory answer.

As last week's column observed, The Whole Nine Yards is also the title of a Tyne Tees Television programme devoted to making things of beauty out of the place where the coal house and the netty used to be (and in some cases, possibly, still are).

It is also a phrase meaning "to go the whole way". We have been there and back and got nowhere.

"One of the great unsolved mysteries of modern etymology," says www.quinion.com. "Hardly anyone has a clue."

"No one knows the answer, though many will tell you that they do," agrees http://.phrases.shu.ac.uk/

Other fanciful notions include the amount of material needed to make a gentleman's suit or a Scotsman's kilt, the length of a maharajah's ceremonial sash, the length of a standard bolt of cloth, the size of a soldier's pack and something to do with American football.

"None of these has anything going for it, save the unsung inventiveness of compulsive explainers," says Michael Quinion.

The chap behind Phrase Finder has also heard the concrete mixer explanation advanced in last week's Gadfly, reminding him of the time in the 1970s when he helped build Spaghetti Junction in Birmingham.

"Trucks often 'lost' part of their load between the mixing depot and the proper destination. The many concrete forecourts in the West Midlands bear continuing witness to that.

"A full load delivered to the road works was a rarity and was usually commented upon, so a phrase being coined to mark the event seems believable."

THE most appealing explanation, however, comes from Phil Westberg in South Africa, clearly a Darlington exile since he asks anxiously about the Strongarm in the Britannia.

The Johannesburg Star also tried to go the whole nine yards, says Phil, and discovered tales of sailing ship and trade route.

"In the captain's efforts to speed the journey - the quicker the journey, the better the profit - full sails were deployed.

"Wear and tear meant frequent repairs; eventually a full sail might need to be replaced. Sail cloth was apparently manufactured in nine yard lengths, hence the phrase about going the whole nine yards."

Phil, in truth, isn't convinced either - "but it's an awful lot more romantic than mixing concrete."

THE third word in the English language ending in "gry"? Well that one really does need a concrete overcoat. It's a first form, D-stream trick question, too silly even to explain. The obvious two are "hungry" and "angry". The third, in common parlance anyway, doesn't exist.

FULL marks for attentiveness, many readers believed that they had spotted a clanger - a load of cobblers awls, Niagara Falls, orchestra stalls and one or two other synonyms - in last week's beginners' guide to Cockney rhyming slang.

They include Dave Dye in Crook, Doug Arnold in Coxhoe ("I'm the one you exposed after your visit to the Coxhoe Cricket Club reunion," he adds, mysteriously) and even Bert Draycott, the world champion spoons player from Fishburn.

"Boat race = nice legs," we said. No it doesn't, they chorused, it's rhyming slang for "face". (Doug also reckons that the slang for legs is "Scotches", as in scotch eggs. "I'm sure others have pointed this out, but like many more I'm a bit of a Trevor White," he adds.)

Too clever by half, the column was in danger of disappearing up its own khyber. "Nice legs shame about the boat race" was a minor hit in 1979 for a band called The Monks. Since then, happily, there has been a period of prolonged and cloistered silence.

ONE or two more for the matriculation course: Omar = grief, Stevie (Bould, ask an Arsenal fan) = cold; Lionel (Bart) = fart, Colonel (Gadaffi) = caf, flowery (dell) = cell and Emma (Freud) and Farmer (Giles) relate to different names for the same painful condition. Readers can probably work it out for themselves.

Still the nonsense rhymes arrive, too, including a painstakingly typed and impossibly long epic from Ernie Reynolds in Wheatley Hill about trying to buy a stamp - a popular pre-war ditty, he believes, by someone called Charlie Higgins.

Ivy Gibson in Sedgefield and G Harding in Staindrop both volunteer the familiar ode about a trip to the cinema:

I went to the pictures tomorrow,

And took a front seat at the back,

A woman there gave me some chocolate, I ate it and gave her it back.

Enough of this nonsense? For the moment, probably.

....and finally to a mystery still deeper than the unfathomable 27ft: this weekend we again celebrate Carlin Sunday. Since the tale of the boat load of grey peas washed up on Cullercoats beach may be taken with a spoonful of vinegar and some butter, there may be other explanations why, every fifth Sunday in Lent, North-East folk eat pigeon food. Ethel Dobson in Bishop Auckland sends a fearsome taproom recipe handed down to her by Ida Staley, whose parents had pubs around Coundon in Edwardian times.

Prepared altogether more wholesomely, there'll also be carlins on Sunday lunchtime in the Brit - and if Phil Westberg can get enough wind in his sails, the Strongarm's still spot on, too.

Published: Wednesday, March 13, 2002