Chrysti The Wordsmith: The Whole - 6

Greetings and welcome to Christie the wordsmith. Recently on this series we've been investigating the history of a family of cliches beginning with the words the whole H O L E such as the whole nine yards and the whole kit and caboodle featured today is the American expression the whole shootin match which like the others mean simply everything or the entire amount. Very little information exists about the evolution of this phrase and what there is seems to be speculation. The Facts on File encyclopedia of word and phrase origins offers this suggestion large crowds gathered at Frontier shooting matches in America to watch marksman compete in hitting targets snuffing out candles etc.. The whole shooting match thus came to mean the whole crowd in attendance and by extension the totality or everything in sports talk. A dictionary of sports metaphors we read this terse explanation of today's idiom quote all of the prizes offered at a shooting match. The

antecedent of our phrase may be an expression developed by British English speakers. The whole shoot which also means the entire amount. It turned into the whole shootin match in North America and began showing up in print in the late 1800s. I'm Christie the wordsmith. You can find out more about this series on my website wordsmith radio dot org and while you're there check out my bibliography of favorite word books and dictionaries. Good day for the horse. CHRISTIE The wordsmith is sponsored by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Zoot enterprises a high tech firm in Bozeman Montana offering challenging careers and innovative solutions for the financial services industry. Zoot web dot com.