Origins

The Whole Story

My neighbour, Maurice, retired from the postal service about five years ago. He was a letter carrier for almost 35 years and he misses the walking he used to do on his route, so now he does it in our neighbourhood.

Maurice often stops in for coffee and conversation at my house and at several others on our street. Sometimes I think I hear him sloshing as he walks by. He is a very kind-hearted soul and he often ends up helping people out with their projects. He also ends up knowing the business of everyone in the area.

Last Saturday afternoon Maurice stopped by for coffee and a chat. I could tell before he sat down that he was a little worked up.

"Did you know that Dooley’s sold his place? He’s unloaded the house, the garage, the sheds, and the business; the whole kit and caboodle." Dooley lived down the street from us. He had been running a small saw-sharpening business out of his garage for longer than anyone could remember. Dooley had been sharpening saws when the rest of the neighbourhood was farmers’ fields and woodlots. He’d been doing it for so long that his property had been granted an exemption when all the other properties were zoned residential.

"Good for him," I said. "Maybe now he and Yvonne can do a little travelling or spend some time in Florida. Do you know where they’re moving?"

"No and that’s beside the point. Do you know who he sold it to?"

I just looked at him and waited.

"He sold it to …" and he named a large multinational discount retailer. "They bought the whole shebang and they’re going to tear it all down and put up a shopping mall."

I scratched my head. "Are you sure about this, Maurice?"

"Sure as I’m standing here," he said, squirming in his chair. "They’re going to have big box stores, and restaurants, and movie theatres, and bowling alleys, the whole nine yards. And Heaven knows what else. You saw what they did in Winchester Heights. Once they get started, they go whole hog."

"Maurice, Dooley’s land isn’t big enough to put a single store on, much less a shopping mega-complex."

"They’re going to buy up the Lebreton’s next door, and the Wilson’s behind them. Then they’ll take the rest of the block and the whole shooting match, right back to the main road. And they’re going to use Dooley’s zoning exemption for the whole thing. After they get in here that’s all she wrote: the neighbourhood’s ruined."

"Maurice, have you been talking to Bill Summerton?"

"He’s the one who warned me about this. He didn’t realize it was a warning, though. Bill thinks it’s a good idea."

"You should know better," I chided. "Bill’s had delusions of grandeur ever since he was almost elected to the town council. He thinks he’s the grand poo-bah of the ward. Has even one of his grandiose predictions ever come to pass?"

Maurice closed his eyes and passed a moment deep in thought. "No, now that you mention it."

"I rest my case."

The English language has a large number of colourful ways to say "everything." Here are a few of them.

Caboodle is a variant of the word boodle, meaning a significant sum of money. It derives from the Dutch word boedal, meaning property. A kit is an outfit. The whole kit and caboodle means, therefore, the whole outfit and a pile of money. The prefix ca- was most likely added to boodle to create a pleasant-sounding alliterative phrase. For a small businessman in the 19th century, this would represent everything he possessed.

The word shebang is not related in any way to Ricky Martin’s recent hit song. The first recorded usage of this term is by Walt Whitman in Specimen Days (1862). It means a shack or hovel and may derive from the Anglo-Irish shebeen, a low, illegal drinking establishment. The whole shebang was first used in 1879, perhaps with some irony, to mean all that one possesses.

Nine cubic yards is the entire contents of a cement-mixer truck. The expression the whole nine yards has meant everything since about the middle of the 20th century. In 18th century America, shooting contests were very popular events that drew large crowds.

The whole shooting match refers to the crowd and all the attendant vendors and hangers, and so means everything, even when this means a very large amount indeed.

That’s all she wrote is used to indicate the end of something. It most likely derives from Dear John letters in the Second World War, in which a sweetheart broke off a relationship with her soldier boyfriend overseas. In From Hear to Eternity, published after the war, although set just before Pearl Harbor, James Jones wrote, "All she’d have to do, if she got caught with you, would be to holler rape and it would be Dear John, that’s all she wrote."

Poo-Bah is the personal name of the Lord High Everything Else in Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado. Ever since this operetta appeared, the name has been applied to politicians and functionaries who are similarly arrogant and self-important. A poo-bah may not be everything, but he thinks he is.

To go whole hog means to go the limit; all the way. It most likely originated in William Cowper’s poem The Love of the World Reproved; or Hypocrisy Detected, published in 1779. The poem tells the story of a group of religious, but starving Mohammedans who, after being ordered by the Prophet not to eat a certain, unspecified part of a pig, end up consuming the entire animal when they are unable to determine which part is forbidden.

S. D. Liddiard is a struggling pen pusher who is wholly and utterly indebted to his editor for her patient understanding and tolerance.