Odd expressions

It originates from a boxer called Larry Foley in the 1890s, before boxing was fully legalised. He won the biggest prize of about $150,000 dollars and a newspaper article in New Zealand had the headline “Happy As Larry” and the phrase stuck.

The bullets for the machine guns used in American combat planes of WW2 and since were in chains twenty-seven feet in length. Thus if a pilot was able to fire all his bullets off at one target he was said to have given his adversary 'the full nine yards'.