Wednesday's Random Slang-o-rama: On cloud nine

I recently learned that THE SECRET IN THE WALL won the 2023 Western Writers of America Spur Award for Best Traditional Novel** and is a Foreword INDIES Award finalist in the Mystery category***, and I am (yes, you guessed it from this post's title) ...

~~ on cloud nine! ~~

This being Slang-o-rama day and all, I started wondering: Why does this phrase, which means blissfully happy, reference the ninth cloud, and not the first or second or hundredth or...? And could my protagonist, Inez Stannert, say she was on cloud nine in the 1880s? 

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The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer notes this colloquial term appeared in the mid-1900s. As for why nine, it's pretty much a shrug: "The exact allusion of nine in this term is unclear, and different figures, especially seven (perhaps alluding to seventh heaven), are sometimes substituted."

The Times (UK) has an article from 2016 about the phrase's origin, but gosh darn it, the story is mostly behind a paywall, except for this opening paragraph:

An unlikely combination of a Victorian aristocrat and an international meteorology meeting 120 years ago led to a well known phrase describing a state of euphoria. In September, 1896, cumulonimbus, the greatest cloud in the world, was listed as Cloud 9 in a new cloud classification, and so to be on cloud nine became like floating on the tallest cloud on Earth.

Thank goodness The Phrase Finder comes to the rescue with an abundance of information about cloud nine, cloud seven, cloud ten, cloud thirty-nine (!!), and more. All in all, it looks like Inez won't ever be on cloud "pick-a-number", unless she manages to reach at least 80-years-plus in age:

...The early references all come from mid 20th century USA and the earliest ... is in Albin Pollock's directory of slang, The Underworld Speaks, 1935: "Cloud eight, befuddled on account of drinking too much liquor."

The Phrase Finder adds that on cloud nine only became popular much later, noting, "George Harrison adopted the term as the title of his 1987 album and, more notably, The Temptations' 'psychedelic soul' album of the same name, in 1969."

And with that, I shall blissfully float away for now...

Image by Ana_J from Pixabay

** Read about the 2023 Spur Award winners and finalists in this WWA news release.

*** See the list of all INDIES Award finalists here. Winners will be announced June 15.