I was talking to a friend who had attended an event at the Community Club in Shepherdstown recently and she said it was very nice and much more formal than most are around here. She said that everyone was dressed to the nines. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019ve heard that expression fairly often over the years, and I always wondered, nine what? I guess I\u2019ve always known that \u201cdressed to the nines\u201d is a way of saying that a person is really \u201cdressed up\u201d or dressed to perfection and really looks nice. But what does \u201cnine\u201d have to do with being nicely dressed?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Well, my extensive research turned up the fact that people were using the phrase \u201cto the nines\u201d maybe a hundred years before it became associated with clothes or the way we dressed. So where did it originate? Even my extensive research failed to come up with a clear answer. I found a lot of different answers and partial answers. A couple of sources said that the phrase \u201cdressed to the nines,\u201d meaning \u201cdressed in a highly elaborate or showy manner,\u201d is a specific application of the Scottish phrase \u201dto the nine(s).\u201d Well, ok, but what does that mean? Everyone seems to agree that the phrase wasn\u2019t originally associated with one\u2019s dress. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a letter written by William Hamilton on July 24, 1719, he wrote: \u201cThe bonny Lines therein thou sent me. How to the nines they did content me.\u201d Supposedly, its meaning is \u201cto perfection \u2014 just right.\u201d Try as I might, I couldn\u2019t find a definitive explanation of the nine in \u201cto the nine(s).\u201d\u201dDressed to the nines\u201d started to be used in the 19th century. A lot of ideas have surfaced linking clothing with the number nine. One idea says that the phrase comes from the nine yards of material a tailor needs to make a really nice suit. But most tailors agree that four to five yards of fabric should be enough for a three-piece suit.
Another story of its origin says the phrase refers to the 99th Regiment of Foot, a British army regiment established in 1842 that was known for the immaculate condition of their uniforms.
Another theory is that the phrase descends from the Old English saying \u201cdressed to the eyes,\u201d which because Old English was weird, was written as \u201cdressed to then eyne.\u201d The thought is that someone at some point heard \u201cthen eyne\u201d and mistook it for \u201cthe nine\u201d or \u201cthe nines.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But nonetheless, the simpler phrases \u201cto the nine\u201d and \u201cto the nines\u201d were already used to mean \u201cto perfection\u201d for maybe a hundred years before \u201cdressed to the nines\u201d came along.\u00a0
Just how the number nine came to be a part of the phrase certainly isn’t clear and doesn\u2019t seem to have been specific to clothing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Why nine\u2026. it could still be a misheard \u201cthen eyne\u201d and refer to the eyes. It might also refer to some group of nine. Nine pops up in myths and history all over the world. In Norse cosmology, the great tree Yggdrasil unites nine worlds. The ancient Greeks had nine muses. In Christianity, there are nine spiritual gifts of the Holy Spirit. In Europe during the Middle Ages, the Nine Worthies were men drawn from pagan, Jewish and Christian history as personifications of chivalry. Maybe the \u201cnines\u201d we use when talking about snappy dressers is referring to one of those groups \u2014 or something else.
But \u2014 after all my extensive research, I decided maybe all these theories were wrong\u2026.. maybe they were referring to being \u201cdressed from head to toe\u201d \u2014 the nines are the ears \u2014 roughly shaped like the number nine\u2026.
So I don\u2019t think anyone really knows the answer to \u201cwhy nine?\u201d But I\u2019m pretty sure it\u2019s always a compliment.
\u2014 30 \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I was talking to a friend who had attended an event at the Community Club in Shepherdstown recently and she said it was very nice and much more formal than most are around here. She said that everyone was dressed … Continue reading