| |
| | Questions & Answers: Cloud nine |
 | | It’s been around since the 1930s, though early examples show a lot of numerical variability, with the cloud sometimes being as low as number seven or eight or as high as thirty-nine, though seven and nine were most common. |
| | Level Nine was the very highest cumulonimbus, which can reach 30,000 or 40,000 feet and appear as glorious white mountains in the sky. |
| | But I suspect, without having anything so restricting as evidence, that seven was chosen because it’s a traditional lucky number and that today’s more usual nine appears for similar reasons—for example it also turns up in dressed to the nines and the whole nine yards. |
| www.worldwidewords.org /qa/qa-clo1.htm (308 words) |
|
