All mouth and trousers

Two right

2011-10-11T21:17:00.000+01:00

If a review of a Jim Cartwright play in the Blackpool Gazette can't get it right, I'd start to despair.

So it's good to see:
an all-human-life-is-there microcosm of still recognisable late 1980s society including a old lady seeking respite from her ailing husband, an all mouth and trousers flirt, a possessive bully, an overlooked other woman and small talking Elvis fan midlifers.

A Hitchen whine

2011-09-30T21:21:00.000+01:00

Just in case anyone didn't already think Peter Hitchens was a complete prannet, here he is dropping the bastardised form in a blog apparently associated with the Mail on Sunday. Hard to tell quite what he's wanking on about, though.

And on the other leg

2011-08-01T20:31:00.000+01:00

BBC America's Anglophenia blog chips in with a charming entry on the phrase:
It’s a description of someone who is boorish and loud, and a little too full of his or herself. It’s analogous to expressions like “cock of the walk” or (going a little further back) “popinjay” or “coxcomb.” The point is not that this is a person who definitely can’t fulfil his or her promises; it’s that this is someone who is boastful about being the most attractive, most astonishing person in the room: a windbag, in other words.

Blog author Fraser McAlpine then goes on to discuss the 'no trousers' variant, to which he gives equivalent consideration as 'a more definite expression'. While arguably correct in terms of common usage, it really should be noted that this is a late bastardisation rooted in the London media scene of the 1980s, without the elegance or sense of the original.

The one should not be considered as a stronger version of the other, as it's extremely unlikely that both would be used by the same speaker. Adherents to the bastardised version, as has been noted, tend to typify the meaning of the original.

Numpty

2011-04-01T21:37:00.001+01:00

Mr Patrick Harvie, co-convener of the Scottish Green Party, shows he's greener than onions with his line for STV:
"The other parties are all mouth and no trousers on public services."

Early uses

2010-08-29T12:23:00.004+01:00

I've found what may be the wellspring of the bastardised form.

The State of the language by Christopher B. Ricks and Leonard Michaels (1990) quotes from a 1988 introduction to the soap opera Eastenders produced by Lionheart Television (the North American distribution arm of the BBC). It reads:
Angie things Den is nothing but aggro. Den thinks Angie is all mouth and no trousers. Sharon thinks they're both berks. Lofty thinks they're all barmy and wishes they'd just belt up - for once.

Google's book search finds just one earlier use, from the London Theatre Review in 1987, in a reference to a comic hero who is all mouth and no trousers.

The bastardised phrase seems to have its roots in the London-based media of the late 1980s. This was the heyday of the Yorkshire sitcom Last of the Summer Wine which, as has been noted, frequently used 'all mouth and trousers', a phrase which might have previously been unfamiliar in many parts of the capital. As that milieu might exemplify the meaning of the original phrase, it seems little wonder the poor dears got confused.

The Google books thing turns up various earlier uses of 'all mouth and trousers', of course. The earliest I can find is in a short story by LP Hartley, collected in 'Two for the River' (1961):
'I wasn't criticizing you,' I said, 'or them.'
'It's not a bad life. Most men are all mouth and trousers— well, I like the trousers best, if you see what I mean.'
'You mean without the trousers.'
'Yes, I suppose I do.'

Earlier examples of either form would be gratefully noted.

Splodge!

2010-08-27T13:52:00.003+01:00

Following the recent Guardian blog debate, I was inspired to have another look for any further information on 'Mouth and Trousers', the 1982 single by punk jesters Spodge which I mentioned a couple of years ago. And behold!

Mind your language

2010-08-26T21:09:00.003+01:00

The Guardian's Mind your language blog tackles the biggest question of the age with its latest entry:
Something lacking in the trouser department?
Big debate that has divided the experts: 'all mouth and trousers' v 'all mouth and no trousers'

Production editor David Marsh reports:
A reader has taken the Guardian style guide to task over our preference for the phrase "all mouth and trousers" to "all mouth and no trousers".
He says: "I was just ranting about this in a comment on David Mitchell's latest soap box post, and it occurred to me that I had never written to the style guide itself on the subject of what I consider the erroneous advice regarding 'all mouth and no trousers'. I'm afraid that I rather feel that it is 'all mouth and no trousers' because the idiom refers to someone boastful who cannot back up their boasts with actions in the, er, trouser department.
"By missing out the word 'no' the meaning is lost, as is the earthiness of the metaphor. With the recommended formulation at best you can say that the individual concerned is both boastful and wears flashy trousers, but flashy trousers are hardly a well-rooted idiom.
"Frankly, I had never come across the phrase without the 'no' in it until I encountered in the style guide, and it saddened me mightily."

Foolish, ignorant reader. Marsh considers the usual sources, and comes to the correct if rather wishy-washy conclusion:
"All mouth and trousers" probably came first, and in the interests of consistency, we shall keep it in the style guide. But let's not get too prescriptive about it: both phrases will have their adherents, and you should use whichever pleases you more.

As previously noted, the people who prefer the bastardised 'no' version often typify the original phrase.

(And thanks to the Guardian's own Nick Das for mentioning this humble blog in the comments to the above.)

The Economist's entertaining Johnson blog has also picked up on the debate. The writer there sadly seems to assume the bastardised version is the original. Of course, that organ has a shameful record on this issue.

From the sleepy city of Townsville

2010-02-27T09:25:00.003Z

Kudos to Malcolm Weatherup of the Townsville Bulletin, a man who not only knows how to use a phrase, but is also good enough to provide an educational digression for his Australian readers -

On the national scene, PM KRudd is increasingly proving himself to be the ideal candidate for the old north of England putdown ' all mouth and trousers'.

(A small digression: for those who aren't familiar with the saying, Michael Quinion in his excellent World Wide Words explains that it is incorrect to say 'no trousers'. Mr Quinion opines 'all mouth and trousers' is an effective put-down of a certain kind of over-confident man. In the Cassell Dictionary of Slang, Jonathon Green explains it as being a pairing of mouth, cheek or insolence, with trousers, a pushy sexual bravado, a fine double example of metonymy, a container for the thing contained.)

Curling one out

2010-02-18T10:29:00.003Z

An Olympic failure, as Jeffrey Jones of Reuters reports:
The Norwegian Olympic men's curling team are highly unlikely to be accused of being all mouth and no trousers.
They have become the talk of competitors and fans alike at the Vancouver Games with their red, white and blue harlequin-pattern pants.

The world would indeed be a finer place if no one would be accused of 'being all mouth and no trousers'- because it doesn't flipping well mean anything.

Gob off

2010-02-02T10:50:00.002Z

Shame on the Wirral Gob, a new local news organ which bills itself with the southern bastardisation:
The newspaper that's all mouth and no trousers

Less talk, Moorcock

2010-01-27T00:00:00.004Z

"He's a classic Austrian. All mouth and trousers and useless in a crisis. Feckless as they come."
- Captain Röhm on Herr Hitler, in 'The Case of the Nazi Canary' by Michael Moorcock (collected in The Metatemporal Detective).

Football shorts

2009-11-13T19:30:00.001Z

The bastardised version crops up again in the Belfast Telegraph, in a football column by Frank Brownlow:
But until Jack Charlton took the team by the scruff of the neck in 1986, the Irish were serial under achievers.
Nice players, nice football, little end product. All mouth and no trousers, if you like.

No, we don't like.

Tous les bouche et pantalon

2009-11-06T08:58:00.002Z

France's Liberation newspaper shows an admirable grasp of English idiom when blogging about diddy David Cameron's latest Euro-whinge -

Conservateurs britanniques : que de la gueule! (All mouth and trousers!)

Tres bien!

Auto erratic

2009-10-29T13:58:00.003Z

Another clueless use of the bastardised form from a car reviewer, as Auto Express asks of some new hatchback:
Flagship version of SEAT's Ibiza Cupra features blacked-out grille, but is it all mouth and no trousers?
Again, this would have been fine with the proper version of the phrase - the flash exterior is there (the grill, like fancy trousers), but the question's whether it has the performance to back up its appearance.

You wear it well

2009-09-30T10:16:00.003+01:00

Popular recording artiste Rod Stewart shows he's got soul, as reported in American Songwriter (even if the puncutation is a little odd):
“When I was a skinny, cocky, all-mouth and trousers teenager living in North London without two pennies to rub together, I discovered the artistry of Otis Redding, Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson, James Brown, The Temptations, The Four Tops and so many more."

Taipei personality

2009-09-21T09:07:00.003+01:00

Pleasing if odd use of the phrase in a headline over a book review in the Taipei Times:
Nick Cave’s ‘Bunny Munro’: all mouth and trousers

It's slightly odd in that the phrase doesn't appear in the copy, which is recycled from the UK Observer (where it didn't have this headline), so was presumably added by a Taiwanese sub.

Warm trousers

2009-09-01T09:32:00.004+01:00

The Guardian rather undercuts its worthy new 10:10 carbon-cutting campaign with meaningless bastardised vergiage, as Ian Katz writes in his introduction:
With the exception of a small, saintly portion of the population, our response to global warming is a classic case of all mouth and no trousers.

See the paper's own delightfully illustrated style guide:
all mouth and trousers
not "all mouth and no trousers"

Stake to the heart

2009-08-07T09:49:00.002+01:00

A classic example of the bastardised form from Neil Gibbons in, cutely enough, Communicate Magazine ('The single voice for stakeholder relations', apparently - I think it might be something to do with vampires):
Of course, there’s a danger of being all mouth and no trousers. “There’s no point trying to create an image of respectability if it isn’t based upon concrete actions decided at the business level,” says Headland’s Trezise.

'Trousers' is not an apt metaphor for 'concrete actions'. It is, however, for 'an image of respectability' without anything behind it. It's another case where the original idiom would be entirely appropriate, but the bastardised form just doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

Right Reverend

2009-07-27T11:32:00.002+01:00

Will Dean gets it right in a Guardian review of the new long-player by Sheffield's underwhelming beat combo Reverend and the Makers -
"Retrospective rebels aren't enough, I'm in love with notion of giving a fuck," McLure sings here and, truly, he seems to be. His close involvement with Love Music Hate Racism suggests he's not just mouth and trousers on that front.

Presidential material

2009-07-14T10:17:00.003+01:00

Carlos Santoscoy of On Top Magazine flops out the bastardised form while reporting a possible change in the US military 'don't ask, don't tell' policy -
Such lucid messages in favor of repeal arrive as the president is being called all mouth and no trousers on the policy. Candidate Obama was a strong supporter of repeal, but as president he's offered a more muddled message.
For the record, the president usually appears to have very nicely cut trousers. The implciit doubt, as ever, is over the contents.

Terror trousers

2009-07-07T09:48:00.004+01:00

David Spens QC shows a nice line of legal reasoning but little grasp of idiom, as reported in the Bristol Evening Post:
"Was he an Islamic extremist intent on carnage and mass murder in the heart of Bristol?" Mr Spens said. "Or was he a weak, lonely figure, living much of his life in a fantasy world, pretending to be somebody he is not. All style and no substance. Does that fit? All mouth and no trousers. Does that fit?"

Well, not really, no.

Dumbphone

2009-06-17T09:46:00.002+01:00

An odd use of the bastardised phrase from the US, with Stevie Smith in the Tech Herald writing of the new Blackberry smartphone thingummyjig -
And, when Research In Motion describes a handset as “fully featured” it certainly doesn’t offer up a half-baked product that’s all mouth and no trousers.

Even with the proper phrase, that wouldn't have made a great deal of sense - it never quite works when applied to inanimate objects.

Green sense; PC claptrap

2009-06-03T12:44:00.002+01:00

A couple of items from last week, one good and one bad.

From a BBC Scotland story on government failures to hit emissions targets:
Green MSP Patrick Harvie complained of "all mouth and trousers" ministers.
A classic pithy use.

And from a PC Pro blog item on some new telephones:
We’ve been hands-on with the quartet of new phones to find out if they’re up to the job – or if they’re all mouth and no trousers.
Even if they'd used the proper phrase instead of the meaningless bastardisation, that still wouldn't make much sense. Utter pish.

Golfing trousers redux

2009-05-12T16:46:00.002+01:00

PA golf correspondent Mark Garrod sinks the ball nicely when he writes:
John Daly has taken just two tournaments in his comeback to show that he is not all mouth and trousers.

Seems like site favourite Ian Poulter has a successor.

Canterbury tales

2009-03-30T10:22:00.002+01:00

A nice use of the proper phrase, as reported on yourcanterbury.co.uk:
County Hall Tory leader Cllr Paul Carter described the Labour publication as "all mouth and trousers".

It's particularly pleasing to see it being used right in Kent, as the bastardised phrase seems to dominate in the south-east.

Doubly confused

2009-03-23T11:13:00.003Z

Roisin Burke makes a ballock of it in the Irish Independent when considering how to repair the country's image:
Branding, corporate image, PR, marketing proposition -- these are dreadful, superficial terms to many people. Understandably so, suggesting,, as they sometimes do, the trumpeting of style over substance, the 'all mouth and no trousers', 'fur coat and no underwear', brash 'great little country' take on the national image that helped get us into this mess in the first place.

Again, the trousers are part of the style, not the substance. And the use of 'fur coat and no underwear' is no better - first, the usual phrase is 'fur coat, no knickers', though that might be a bit rude for delicate Irish tastes; and second, that means something else entirely...

Sub-Standard

2009-03-05T15:05:00.003Z

'80s politico turned sports hack David Mellor dribbles out the bastardised version in an Evening Standard column:
Everywhere in the world there's a derisive phrase to describe a guy like UEFA president Michel Platini. Here, it's all mouth and no trousers; in Texas, all hat and no cattle; in Australia, the kind of guy who talks a good lay.

I suppose that, if by 'here' he means the dumber parts of London, he's right, but it's still depressing to see the meaningless bastardisation being used instead of the correct form. And any conjunction of Mellor and 'no trousers' just summons up horrible memories of that Chelsea-strip story.

Much all mouth and no trousers

2009-01-26T10:28:00.002Z

Again, the bastardised form gets used in a quite inexplicable fashion in an unexpected corner, courtesy of China View -
Chen Jun, a magazine editor in Shanghai, said he was disappointed to not have access to the "Shanzhai" show.
"It was much all mouth and no trousers. I think it has let many people down," Chen said.

One can't really criticise the speaker here, as English evidently isn't his first language, but it's a sad demonstration of how the bastardised version has spread at the expense of the eloquent original.

Fashion pants

2009-01-21T10:49:00.002Z

Another stupid use of the bastardised form from an unexpected quarter, as an unidentified hack writes in the Austrian Times:
Fashion guru Giorgio Armani has accused David and Victoria Beckham's favourite designer pals Dolce & Gabbana of being all mouth and no trousers.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. Clearly the trousers are there - it's the contents that are (metaphorically) missing.

Cricket whites

2009-01-19T10:55:00.003Z

Peter Hayter in the Daily Mail goes out for a duck, writing of cricket boss Giles Clarke:
Clarke's backers had been under the impression that, although his aggressive and confrontational style has polarised opinion, he would be re-elected unopposed for a second two-year term and any opposition to him was of the all-mouth-and-no-trousers variety.

Back to the pavilion with you.

Painful movement

2009-01-16T14:47:00.003Z

The doubtless well-meaning folks at the 'World Development Movement' rather undermine their case through their use of the meaningless bastardisation in this press release -

Heathrow decision: 'Government is all mouth and no trousers on climate change' say World Development Movement.
Benedict Southworth, director of the World Development Movement said:
“The government says it is serious about tackling climate change; but in the same breath, they give the thumbs up to a new runway at Heathrow. This is a real let down and shows the government up to be all mouth and no trousers when it comes to climate change. The government is relinquishing any claim to credibility or leadership on action against climate change. They talk tough, but aren't delivering.

Once again, trousers ain't synonymous with delivery. Anything but, usually. Mind you, that mixed metaphor is almost as painfully dumb - 'in the same breath, they give the thumbs up'?

Dismal Economist

2008-12-12T10:26:00.003Z

The Economist gets itself into an awful mess with an extended metaphor based on the bastardised, nonsensical version of the phrase -

The gap between mouth and trouser
One worry is that China’s rulers will try to push the yuan down to help exporters. That would be a terrible idea, not least because the government has the resources to ease the pain in less dangerous ways: it is running a budget surplus and has little debt. Last month it announced a huge 4 trillion yuan (nearly $600 billion) fiscal-stimulus package. Some who have crunched the numbers argue that this was all mouth and no trousers—much of it made up by old budget commitments, double-counting and empty promises. It was thus mainly propaganda, to convince China’s own people and the outside world that the government was serious about stimulating demand at home. That may yet prove to be unfair: what matters is when infrastructure money is spent, not when it is announced. Yet there is little sign that the regime is ready to take radical steps in the two areas that would do most to persuade the rural majority to spend its money rather than hoard it: giving farmers better rights over their land; and providing a decent social safety-net, especially in health care.
Still, China does at least have trousers, with deep pockets.

Did none of the Economist's famously finicky subs not realise that the bastardised phrase, particularly in this tortured form, makes no sense whatsoever? It's particularly shaming as the paper's style guide is generally one of the best in the business.

Leadership failure

2008-11-28T10:55:00.003Z

Another example of the bastardised form from an exotic source, the Economics Times of India -
When the going gets tough, we expect our leaders to lead the way — to be an example in cutting costs, to be the first one to take salary reductions. However, if the leader is all mouth and no trousers, we get upset. Rightly so.
But, sadly, wrongly expressed.

Stumble and fall

2008-11-10T10:00:00.003Z

The Times gets itself deeply confused in a profile of the front man from inexplicably popular popsters Razorlight. The standfirst asks, barbarically -
With his cocksure swagger, tangle of hair and big opinions, Johnny Borrell is a throwback to rock gods of another age. But is the Razorlight frontman all mouth and no trousers?

But then, in the text by Craig McLean, we find a well-deployed variant of the proper phrase -
He went to a posh school (Highgate) but became a teenage drug monster, hanging about in Camden Town with the likes of Doherty and his Libertines bandmate Carl Barât. “Heroin was quite chic in the Nineties,” he says of his two-year habit. “It was around. I wasn’t grown up at that point, I was just a teenager getting high.” Mystique-building artifice, it seemed, jostled with heady aspiration. He was all mouth and (white) trousers (and no shirt).

Score one for McLean, and minus points for whichever hopeless sub wrote that standfirst.

Good streak

2008-11-04T12:19:00.003Z

A good twist of the phrase by Sue Nelson in the York Press (surely a bastion of its proper use) -
MY 15-year-old son, a lovable 6ft 2in streak of mouth and trousers, has been talking about “Getting A Car” in two years’ time.

Well done, Sue, and good luck...

Pants on fire

2008-11-01T13:09:00.002Z

Bewildering use of the bastardised form in a headline in the Scotsman -
Fireraiser was all mouth and no trousers
A BUNGLING fireraiser challenged a man to fight then set himself ablaze when he tried to torch a house.
The High Court in Glasgow yesterday heard that 37-year-old Gary Reilly fled the scene with his trousers on fire.[...]

The head's both ignorant and inaccurate, as clearly he was wearing trousers - though, perhaps, not for that long.

Motor mouth

2008-10-06T10:54:00.002+01:00

Andrew Anthony gets it right in a car review for the Guardian, writing of the Alfa Romeo Brera S:
It's a perfect prowling car, conveying the impression that only the smallest flex of the right ankle will propel you into hyperspace. And it's an impression that remains utterly convincing right up until the moment the right ankle is flexed - at which point it becomes apparent that, when it comes to a snappy power drive, the Alfa scores a Beta. Some might say that the Brera is all mouth and trousers. But that would be harsh. There's some lovely red stitching, too.

This is of course in line with the Guardian's own style guide, which notes:
all mouth and trousers
not "all mouth and no trousers"
I was particularly pleased to see that entry included in the condensed style guide included with the newspaper the previous week.

Called to account

2008-09-26T09:43:00.003+01:00

There's a deficit of sense over at Accountancy Age, where Kevin Reed writes:
For an industry that has had a reputation of all mouth and no trousers, it’s somehow fitting that the Management Consultancies Association has appointed a CEO with a strong background in PR and political communications.

Golf trousers final

2008-09-22T16:51:00.002+01:00

Congratulations to golfing chap Ian Poulter, of whom it is written in the Guardian -
He knows this morning that he got it right, that he has finally thrown off the "all mouth and trousers" tag and that from here on in he is more or less bulletproof. Except maybe for the trousers now and then.

One must also salute Poulter for doing so much to promote the correct idiom, albeit inadvertantly and via the medium of sports journalist cliché. But clichés being what they are, unless there's any egregious (mis)use of the phrase with regards to his performance, we'll be giving him a rest henceforth.

What is the point of the Daily Telegraph?

2008-09-02T15:06:00.003+01:00

Another use of the bastardised from from Bruno Waterfield in the Daily Telegraph blog:
The West can talk a good Cold War but when push comes to shove, the EU is all mouth and no trousers - probably just as well.

To put it in Telegraph terms, that's yet another shaming failure of a supposedly educated person to use the Great British language. Do these people learn nothing at school (Eton, probably)?

Showing off your Eng-rish

2008-08-24T10:33:00.002+01:00

A delightful sketch from Lydia Teh in the Malaysian Star brings that jewel of Northern vernacular to the Far East -

“I don’t believe you’d do such a despicable act. You’re all mouth and trousers,” Eh Poh Nim said.

“What do you mean all mouth and trousers? Of course I’m all trousers. Have you seen me wearing a skirt like that famous Malaysian designer in New York?” Max put his hand on his hip and pouted like a woman.

Eh Poh Nim laughed at his comical gait. “You talk a lot but there’s no action is what I mean.”

“Say so lah. I hate you, Eh Poh Nim. Always showing off your Eng-rish.”

Tailor-made

2008-08-17T19:09:00.003+01:00

A broadly correct, if rather clumsily literal, example from the Independent:
Ozwald Boateng is the man who shook up stuffy old Savile Row. He's got an OBE, a glamorous Russian wife and a client list that includes many of the world's biggest stars. But is he more than just mouth and trousers?

Around the world

2008-08-05T10:59:00.002+01:00

A couple of examples from odd sources; one right, one wrong.

Stuart Littlewood of BBSNews ('Your true conservative news source', apparently) writes about the blockade of Gaza:
On recent performance the nations of the West are "all mouth and trousers", as we say in England. They spout high-sounding words but renege on their duty. In Palestine's case they haven't delivered in 60 years… to their eternal shame.
Bang on.

Meanwhile in South Africa, Nicole Johnston of the Mail & Guardian has a thunkpiece on climate policy titled, simply and wrongly:
All mouth and no trousers?
There's no mention of either version of the phrase in the copy, so this might be the curse of the dumb subeditor again.

Golf trousers 5

2008-07-21T19:08:00.001+01:00

It's that man again - this time, with the bold headline in the Times:
Ian Poulter more than mouth and trousers

Golf trousers 4

2008-07-17T07:07:00.002+01:00

Martin Johnson in the Telegraph gets it right again, with another story about the golfer who's fast becoming this site's mascot -
However, when it comes to failing to match words with deeds, Monty has at least developed a bit of a rival in Ian Poulter, who not so long ago revealed that he saw himself as the only challenger to Woods. It would be a bit unfair to describe Poulter as all mouth and trousers, but he'll remain better known for his designer strides than his golfing strides until he at least mounts a serious challenge for a major.

To cap it all

2008-05-08T19:02:00.002+01:00

Someone called Genevieve Maitland Hudson gets it wrong in a Guardian blog thunkpiece on the EU common agricultural policy -
These are all measures which have the concerns of the local, the regional and the environmental at heart. And, lest it be thought that the EU is all mouth and no trousers, these measures have been highly effective.

See the style guide, pet -
all mouth and trousers
not "all mouth and no trousers"
If you're complaining about the homogenisation of culturally distinctive foodstuffs, you'll make a better argument if you don't bastardise culturally distinctive language while you're at it.

Golf trousers 3

2008-04-11T10:46:00.002+01:00

Golfer Ian Poulter makes his third appearance here, with Martin Johnson getting it right in the Telegraph:
There is no current golfer under the age of 30 who has won a major, so at 32, you could say that Poulter is ready to break through. He certainly thinks so, voicing his opinions in such a way as the MC could easily introduce him with the line "the man who is synonymous with all mouth and trousers".

So that's two usages of the right phrase in relation to Poulter, and one of the bastardised version. Given the usual ratio across the press, that's above par.

Hanging Chad

2008-04-01T07:11:00.002+01:00

'Harchester United Batchelor' is not a fit or proper person to own Mansfield Town, according to the uniquely named Mansfield Chad.

While I know nowt about his talents in the football business, he certainly doesn't seem like a fit person when it comes to language:
"Mr Batchelor has to date shown nothing but contempt for the supporters of football clubs. He has in the last week described supporters' organisations as "web warriors", "all mouth and no trousers", "mouthy fans" and "armchair critics".

Use of the bastardised phrase is a sure sign of a wrong 'un.

No son of mine

2008-02-13T15:22:00.003Z

Richard Morrison, of the Times, boasts:
My mother’s family lived around the coalfields of South Yorkshire.

Good for her. Sadly, young Richard later writes:
Fancy regeneration schemes – all mouth and no trousers, as my granny would have said – have delivered neither jobs nor prospects nor pride.

Presumably this granny must have been from the other, south-of-England, side of the family tree. In Yorkshire, it's 'all mouth and trousers', lad.

Golf trousers 2

2008-02-05T14:53:00.000Z

The Daily Mail gets something right for once, with sports columnist Des Kelly writing:
Ian Poulter: All mouth and trousers. The flamboyantly attired English golfer says he was misquoted when he said he was the only worthwhile challenger to Tiger Woods.

This is the second appearance here for this Poulter character, following a Scotsman profile last year that got it exactly wrong.

Tory trousers

2008-01-23T10:31:00.000Z

Kevin Maguire in the Mirror gets the sentiment right but the language wrong when he writes of David Cameron:
He's all Tory mouth and no trousers.

Shame, as Cameron's a textbook definition of the actual meaningful phrase, 'all mouth and trousers'. He's often to be seen in those 'casual' focus-grouped dad jeans (anything but striped Eton trews), but the lack of substance is somewhat deeper.

Fine and dandy

2007-12-16T15:50:00.000Z

Another right use from down under, with the Sydney Morning Herald writing of:
Man-about-town [Beau] Brummell, for whom the term "all mouth and trousers was surely coined"

Odd use of quotation marks, but bang-on with the usage.

Bluff and bluster

2007-11-22T11:05:00.000Z

Guardian blogger Seth Freedman makes a schmuck of himself in this piece on Jewish campaigning groups:
It is precisely this kind of vague, indistinct approach to the conflict that has prevented IJV from being taken seriously in the circles it should have been reaching out to from the start. For all its bluff and bluster, it never stood a chance at challenging an august institution such as the BoD. It relied on rhetoric and hyperbole rather than firm positions based on belief and commitment - in short, all mouth and no trousers.

'Rhetoric and hyperbole' translate to 'mouth', yes - but you've got problems if you confuse 'firm positions based on belief and commitment' with the 'trousers' themselves rather than their metaphorical contents.

As the Guardian style guide correctly prescribes:
all mouth and trousers
not "all mouth and no trousers"

No quotes

2007-11-05T10:02:00.000Z

A couple of examples of the bastardised version cropped up last week in direct quotes in contrasting items. In one case, it rather weakens the point being made; in the other, it just confirms your suspicion that folk who don't quite grasp the proper phrase tend to exemplify its meaning.

First, from a press release from War on Want:
Simon McRae, senior campaigns officer at War on Want, said: "Another government inquiry into supermarkets has found evidence of abuse, but failed to take action. [...] Unless a regulator is appointed, ministers’ rhetoric on the need to make poverty history will seem like all mouth and no trousers."
Good cause. Crap grasp of the language.

Second, from a largely incomprehensible PR industry story from North-West media site How-Do:
The poor uptake led Slam’s Chris Dolan to comment: “Seems our other counterparts are all mouth and no trousers."
A PR chap talking ignorant nonsense. Who'd have thought it?

Brown trousers

2007-10-07T22:13:00.000+01:00

The Sunday Times loudly proclaims its fuckwitted ignorance with a bold headline:
All mouth and no trousers
Having whipped the country into a frenzy over the prospect of a snap election, Gordon Brown called the whole thing off at the 11th hour yesterday. Why did he leave it so late and what are the consequences for his premiership?

Sad, really. And that's not even considering the craptastic spin of the story.

Soft soap

2007-09-30T07:44:00.000+01:00

Another typically dumb example of the vulgarised version, from Tina Baker's soap opera column in the Mirror:
To give Jimmy his due, he only talks to Lexi (proving he’s all mouth and no trousers), promising he won’t tell Carrie about her raunchy job.
If one accepts the vernacular use of the bastardised version, that might just abut be acceptable if she were talking about Eastenders - but this was about Emmerdale.

Pony and trap

2007-09-10T09:59:00.000+01:00

One wrong 'un, and one right but odd example from the weekend.

A typically ignorant use of the vulgarised version from Brian Taylor of BBC Scotland:
Anyway, Alex Salmond marked GED by visiting Crystal Rig windfarm near Dunbar. He said he was aginst new nuclear - and in favour of renewable energy. Wind, wave, tidal, biomass and the rest.
The response from Labour was markedly acerbic - and in line with their evident determination to depict Mr S as all mouth and no trousers.
Salmond seems a popular target for such accusations, though Michael White in the Guardian at least gets the insult right.

Emma Lee in the Norfolk Eastern Daily Press also gets the phrase right, even if she does seem rather arbitrarily rude:
The good news is that New Young Pony Club are galloping our way.
Formed by production guru Andy Spence and all-mouth-and-trousers singer Tahita Bulmer, their raison d'etre is a simple one. They want to make music fun - and they want to make you dance.

All gong and no dinner

2007-08-30T09:53:00.000+01:00

Has the bastardised version achieved some kind of recognition in Nigel Rees’s new loo-side tome, All Gong and No Dinner: 1001 Homely Phrases and Curious Domestic Sayings?

According to Richard Morrison's review in The Times:
Just recall such fruity exclamations as “I should cocoa!”, or “I wasn’t born on Pancake Day!”, or “I could eat the dates off a calendar!”, or even the one that gives the book its title: “He’s all gong and no dinner!” (and its saucier variant: “He’s all mouth and no trousers”). They are so blissfully surreal as to be, on the surface, virtually nonsensical.

Not having the book to hand, I can't say whether the bastardised 'all mouth and no trousers' does feature there, or is Morrison's own addition (shame on him if so). The publicity bumf on the publisher's site includes a brief extract which doesn't feature that dread mangling:
All gong and no dinner - meaning, of a person, that he is 'all talk and no action'. What you might say of a loud-mouthed person who is somewhat short on achievement. Current since the mid-20th century at least. 'So far, all we have had from the Government is "all gong and no dinner" - to use a phase that a constituent of mine used in a public meeting. In other words, the sound and the fury have been there but the delivery has been missing' - speaker at Welsh Grand Committee (Westminster) (2001). Texan variant: 'All hat and no cattle.'
A fine phrase in its own right - but absolutely not of the same kind as the proper 'all mouth and trousers', in which the lack is implicit. The bastardised 'no trousers' version is, of course, utterly nonsensical and a not remotely blissful violation of the original.

Mouth of the Congo

2007-08-29T09:30:00.000+01:00

A good, if rather self-conscious, entry from Tony O'Brien in the doubtlessly indispensable Metapsychology Online. In a review of Alain Mabanckou's novel African Psycho, O'Brien notes:
If there is a redeeming feature of Greg it is that he is incompetent in the execution of his grisly plans. When it comes to realizing his ideals as an inheritor of Angoualima's mantle he is exposed as a fantasist, all mouth and trousers, as the English would say. Perhaps not all, but beside Angoualima he is a pathetic pretender.

O'Hagan dash

2007-07-11T10:09:00.001+01:00

Andrew O'Hagan (presumably the noted Scottish novelist) shows his literary sensibilities have gone missing in a Telegraph thunkpiece on the subject of corporate sponsorship of the London Olympics:

Yet within a couple of years of that great decision to award the games to London, we find that big business is all mouth and no trousers. Private sponsorship was always expected to come up with a third of the total cost. Are they seriously now going to abandon that commitment, leaving the Government to rob its own lottery fund to make up the difference?

A reader's comment renders the bastardised phrase even more meaningless:
It would therefore be an excellent idea to reward them for their failure to connect mouth and trousers, with a special surcharge on corporation tax to make up the shortfall.

This image of corporate types connecting their mouths with trousers summons up games of a decidedly non-Olympic flavour.

Golf trousers

2007-06-04T09:40:00.001+01:00

Another mystifying use of the bastardised form from the Scotsman, in a profile of dressy golfer Ian Poulter:
CONFRONTED by the loud and startlingly individual sartorial taste of Ian Poulter, it is easy to imagine that here is a man who really is all mouth and no trousers[...]
Poulter does have an on-course dress sense only Stevie Wonder could admire. Yes, he does have an unerring ear for the snappy sound bite. And yes, his taste in hairstyles is more REM than R&A. But underneath the flash and behind the glibness there is a real golfer, a serious golfer[...]
Who, for example, will easily banish from their minds the Union Jack strides he wore for the opening round of the Open Championship at Royal Troon in 2004?

That would make fine sense if the first line had 'all mouth and trousers': with the bastardised form, it is literally nonsense. Again, I suspect the hand of an over-zealous but pig-ignorant sub-editor.

Smart Alex

2007-05-17T10:26:00.000+01:00

At last, the first identified sighting of the proper phrase in five months! Michael White, in a Guardian piece on the anointing of the SNP's Alex Salmond as Scotland's First Minister, writes:
Scots - and the rest of us - are also entitled to find out whether "Smart Alex" is all mouth and trousers in the governing department or whether - as sometimes happens - he surprises his critics and does rather well.
Bravo, Michael! A bang-on use of the phrase - though, under the circumstances, perhaps something creative involving kilts might have been appropriate.

Of course, as previously noted the Guardian's own style guide does prescribe the correct phrase over the southern bastardisation - "not "all mouth and no trousers", as has appeared in the paper" - although some columnists apparently remain obdurately opposed.

Meanwhile, another typically idiotic barbarism in the London Evening Standard from restuarant critic Fay Maschler:
When I grizzle about molecular gastronomy, which strikes me as all mouth and no trousers, people in the biz say, you must go to Noma in Copenhagen.
No pudding for you, Ms Maschler!

Metro sloppy one

2007-05-08T15:33:00.000+01:00

More slackjawed idiocy from the pages of instant-landfill rag Metro, in a non-story about some TV cook -
The pair managed to eat braised bull's penis, Gordon keeping his down by gulping white wine.
But he proved himself to be all mouth and no trousers when it came to the next dish on the menu.

An insult to the language, wrapped in a disgrace to journalism.

Dumb Echo

2007-05-04T09:40:00.000+01:00

Another vulgarised turn from, shamefully, the Northern Echo, where a TV reviewer writes:
Hustle has always been all mouth and no trousers. All surface gloss and glitz without much soul.

Again,'surface gloss and glitz' somehow translates into 'no trousers', when it's a clear case of the fancypants opposite. When even the Northern Echo cocks it up, is there any hope for the original glorious phrase?

Raw prawns

2007-05-03T09:23:00.000+01:00

The last reported sighting of the correct use of 'all mouth and trousers' (back in December!) came from Australia. Although my Antipodean connections reckoned it wasn't a common phrase down there, I held some hope that the famously straight-talking Aussies could at least appreciate the phrase. Alas, this comes in from the political pages of the Adelaide Advertiser:
The Premier accused Mr Hamilton-Smith of being "all mouth and no trousers" and in answer to another question said the Government was being subjected to a barrage of abuse from the Liberals.

Crow-eating whacka, as I believe they say in those parts.

You're fired

2007-05-01T06:54:00.000+01:00

Something called 'The Badger' (believed to be a former participant on popular TV gameshow 'The Apprentice') buggers the language in comments reported in The Sun and elsewhere:
"If Tre was in my business, I’d crush him within a minute," The Badger said. "I’d smack him. He’s all mouth and no trousers."

What's particulrly sad is that this Badger person is being promoted as a "no-nonsense star" with a "trademark straight-talking style". A shame, then, that she apparently uses the ignorant language of one who can't tell the packaging from the contents.

All X and (no) Y

2007-04-30T10:22:00.000+01:00

Just stumbled across this entry on Language Log, pondering the Economist's barbaric use of 'All mouth and no trousers" in a recent headline (as noted below):

This is apparently a UK expression that I've somehow managed to miss. The deck ("Are foreign firms as keen on Asia as they claim to be?") and the rest of the story make it clear that the meaning is same as "all hat and no cattle", "all sizzle and no steak", "all bark and no bite", etc.
But the mouth v. trousers variant is puzzling. The X in "all X and no Y" (hat, sizzle, bark) represents pretense, and "mouth" is fine for that. But the Y (cattle, steak, bite) stands for the corresponding reality -- and what's so real about trousers, especially in correspondence with mouth? None of the obvious answers belongs in an Economist headline.
A bit of web search demonstrates that the expression is a fairly common one, with variants like "all talk and no trousers", "all hype and no trousers", "all puff and no pants", etc., but doesn't explain where it comes from.
There's some evidence on the web that others are puzzled about this as well -- one reviewer on amazon.com says that the (rock band) Crimea is "posturing, all trousers and no action". So apparently there's a stage of substance even beyond stereotypically male garments.

A correspondent then points towards this humble blog, and the unfortunate confusion surrounding 'trousers'/'no trousers', prompting this comment:
Aha! Wow! etc. We should return the favor and re-metonymize some of the "all X and no Y" expressions to remove the negative: "He's all hat and cattle. She's all bark and bite." It works even better, I think.
Which seems a bit silly, really.

Everybody’s dressing up, I’m dressing down

2007-04-25T12:24:00.000+01:00

Another music journo shows his ignorance - this time David Sinclair in a lacklustre review of popular Scottish combo The View for, of all things, The Times:
A new song, Fireworks and Flowers, was another twitchy, music hall knees-up — all mouth and no trousers.
Still, a knees-up with no trousers must have been quite a sight.

Cheesy Caracas

2007-04-04T08:03:00.000+01:00

The plague spreads... Another damnable example of the bastardised form in a headline, this time from Venezuelan financial organ VenEconomy, and republished here by Petroleum World:

All mouth and no trousers
The Central Bank of Venezuela has just announced that the Consumer Price Index for the Caracas Metropolitan Area fell by 0.7% in March, the lowest monthly rate in 19 years.

As with last week's Economist headline (below), it's particularly annoying because the head (in either form) has very little to do with the story.

Wrongheaded Economist

2007-04-02T11:16:00.000+01:00

Thudding wrongness from the Economist, usuallly a publication that's excruciatingly exact over its English, with a headline in its Business section:

Multinationals in Asia
All mouth and no trousers
Mar 29th 2007 | HONG KONG
Are foreign firms as keen on Asia as they claim to be?

As they don't say in the UK

2007-03-24T11:59:00.000Z

More ignorance in a car review from Cnet Reviews, where the colonial reviewer informs us:
alas, the non-Evo Lancer remains lots of bark without the requisite bite, or as editor Kevin Massy assures us they say in the United Kingdom, all mouth and no trousers.

If by 'they' he means 'idiots', he could be right. Otherwise, no. If 'mouth' is equivalent to 'bark', in what conceivable way is 'trousers' equivalent to 'bite'?

A right load of cock

2007-02-24T16:31:00.000Z

A egregiously stupid use of the bastardised form in this story from the Hackney Gazette:
A HACKNEY artist is asking men to prove they are not all mouth and no trousers by taking part in an exhibition featuring hundreds of pictures of penises.
Lawrence Barraclough, 30, of Chelmer Road, Homerton, wants men to bare all anonymously for his one-off exhibition at the Foundry Gallery in Shoreditch this weekend by sending in pictures of their manhood to go on display.

This literally makes no sense whatsoever - exhibiting your penis proves that you are not 'no trousers'?

It would make sense if the original phrase was used. Maybe the reporter did use 'all mouth and trousers' in his original copy, properly distinguishing between the trousers and their contents - only for a particularly ignorant and incompetent sub-editor to insert that 'no', not only bastardising the phrase but also rendering the whole intro nonsensical. Utter bollocks, either way.

Just not cricket

2007-02-15T05:52:00.000Z

Another exotic example of the bastardised form, from The Hindu's Sportstar weekly. Ted Corbett, in a review of the England cricket team's recent performance, writes:
most amazing of all, the 36-year-old wicket-keeper Paul Nixon who is as people in his part of the world say, "all mouth and no trousers."
In other words he talks a good game while he iron gloves the ball to the ground and always, but always, seems to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Handy explanation, but given that Nixon is from Carlisle rather than London or environs, that just isn't what 'people in his part of the world' would say.

Pantseats driving

2007-01-19T09:56:00.000Z

A typically meaningless usage of the bastardised form from Car Magazine:
Peugeot's new 107 Sport XS is aimed squarely at younger drivers who want racy looks that won't break the bank. This model is all mouth and no trousers, you could say.

You could indeed say that. But you'd be a wassock.

The car is, apparently, pepped up by the modish racing stripes and matching mirror trim, 14in alloy wheels, a deeper front spoiler and twin exhausts with a handful of sporting accessories and 1980s-style red stitching - reminiscent of the 205 GTI - to differentiate it from more humdrum 107s, which sounds like a classic case of automotive trousers rather than contents.

The Horrors, the Horrors

2007-01-02T09:24:00.000Z

'Mystic Vic' gets it wrong in a start-of-year pop round-up in The Sun:
THE HORRORS are another indie hype band who could prove to be all mouth and no trousers — or make it huge.

Gobby goth muppets can be a textbook example of what's meant by all mouth and trousers, but the southern vulgarisation seems particularly unsuitable here - from the pictures, the Horrors have ill-advised trousers in abundance.

The first Noel

2006-12-14T09:47:00.000Z

A welcome example from Australia, in a Sydney Morning Herald interview with popular recording artiste Noel Gallagher -
You could say Noel Gallagher is all mouth and trousers - faded black ones tonight in Melbourne, worn with a dark brown pinstriped jacket. You could add he's a walking opinion who shovelled too much Colombian up his nose for a few years, a mouthy git and an egomaniac whose best years were a decade ago. He'd almost certainly agree.

It's tribute, perhaps, to the legendary no-nonsense Australian character that the phrase lives on down under. You beauties.

Tidy

2006-12-10T20:50:00.000Z

From the Wenglish dictionary of Valley-speak (as spoken in the valleys of South Wales, that is, rather than the 80s Californian teenspeak. Though both Gwent and Orange County have a Newport), comes this vernacular equivalent which correctly references the original:

All jaw: All mouth, boastful, lazy, “bullshitter”. “He’s all jaw he is, all mouth and trousers, but he’s too lazy to get out of his own way.”

Seoul offence

2006-12-10T12:19:00.000Z

Another couple of shameful examples of the bastardised form:
A typically ignorant example from the London Evening Standard website:
In that opening 45 minutes,Liverpool were all mouth and no trousers. For all their dominance of possession,they rarely threatened to score.

More oddly, from the South Korean Digital Chosunilbo:
The mega hit movie “The Host,” which set a new record in the Korea movie history by attracting more than 13 million audiences here, came in seventh in the first week of its release in Japan in September and fell to 10th in the second week. Park Hyun-tae, CEO of Sovik Venture Capital which specializes in film investment, said, "If the Korean movie industry is content with the current high theater occupancy rate of domestic movies here, it’ll prove all mouth and no trousers.”

Politics laid bare

2006-12-06T09:04:00.000Z

Brickbats for Liberal Dem environment spokesman Chris Huhne MP, who says:
The Tories are a shambles on green taxes. George Osborne says he favours green taxes, but the special commission he set up to look at taxes did not come up with a single plan for green taxation.
This proves that the Tories are all mouth and no trousers on the environment. The voters are waking up to the fact that the Tories have no proposals for tackling climate change, merely hot air and claptrap.

and Glasgow Herald political hack Michael Settle, who writes of David Cameron:
On policy, the conclusions of the swathe of commissions are not due until next summer, leading to the charge that the Tory leader is "all mouth and no trousers".

We might allow Settle the use of the vulgarised phrase in quotes, but there's no excuse for Huhne (himself a former journalist, now MP for some suburb of Southampton on a slim majority). One trusts his linguistic sloppiness does not reflect any laxity of political rigour.

Oh, those Russians

2006-11-29T15:56:00.000Z

An odd use of the vulgarised phrase from a TV review in the Moscow Times:
Apparently it will be shown on NTV after the 10 p.m. beer-advertising watershed, but still before the midnight erotica threshold, in a twilight zone when viewers are still supposed to be sipping their lager. So that means this little whorehouse is all mouth and no trousers, as it were, since it can't actually have sex scenes.

If they're Russian, they can perhaps be excused getting it wrong. There again, the reviewer is one Anna Malpas, whose surname suggests origins closer to the Taff than the Moskva. Должен пробовать тяжелее, or summat.

Punk rules

2006-11-15T10:31:00.000Z

Well mouth and trousers, sonny boy, never changed a thing
The only thing that'll ever change will be the song you sing
Cos when you've bought your Rolls Royce car and your luxury Penthouse Flat
You'll be looking down your nose and saying "Punk, dear chap, what's that?"
- The Greatest Working Class Rip Off, Crass

She can turn upon a sixpence in the mouth and trousers set
Hit the bill, ring the bell, never spill a sip
And still she knows the kind of tip that she is gonna get
- King Horse, Elvis Costello

I played a blinder against a gaggle of nuns
I was all mouth and trousers
They were fingers and thumbs
- Happy to be Here, Eurythmics

Not forgetting the 1982 7" by Splodge - anyone got lyrics for this?

A false Peace

2006-10-24T11:18:00.000+01:00

An egregious example of getting it wrong. David Peace, in his recent novel The Damned Utd, writes an argument between his fictionalised Brian Clough and Pete Taylor:

'So what are you going to do then?' asks Pete. 'Drive a taxi? Buy a pub?'
'Fuck off!'
'All mouth and no trousers,' says Pete. 'That's the real Cloughie!'
'Fuck off!' you shout and throw a pillow at him -
'All mouth and no fucking trousers,' he laughs. 'No fucking balls!'

Of course, it's fine to have a fictional character use the phrase 'All mouth and no trousers' if that is in character. However, the character here is a working-class man from Nottingham in the early 1970s. It's not in character, and it's anachronistic.

David Peace has been widely praised for his evocation of the language and atmosphere of his native West Riding in the 1970s and 80s. This then seems a rare error. I wonder if it was rather the fault of an keen-but-ignorant editor at his London publisher, Faber & Faber?

The 'No fucking balls!' extension might suggest so - it explicitly distinguishes between the surface gloss (the trousers) and the actual content, a distinction that is at the heart of the correctly-used expression, and suggests that Peace is aware of this. Contrary to the implicit assumptions of the bastardised phrase, 'trousers' is an antonym for 'balls', not a metonym.

Constantine says

2006-10-24T11:08:00.000+01:00

Here's how to do it right -

One of my (anti)heroes of fiction, John Constantine, in an early appearance in Swamp Thing 37, as written by the great Alan Moore.

Respect and remonstration

2006-10-24T10:13:00.000+01:00

Gratitude and respect to the learned Languagehat, who noted and recommended this humble blog within hours of its launch:
Such extreme devotion to authentic local usage deserves our honor and respect. Greetings also to the visitors who left messages below.

To demonstrate the need for this campaigning blog, may I point towards the Guardian, a frequent offender. The newspaper's excellent style guide correctly prescribes:
all mouth and trousers
not "all mouth and no trousers", as has appeared in the paper

Yet last month, diarist Jon Henley wrote, apropos David Cameron:
Surely they're not suggesting the dear boy's all mouth and no trousers?

I naturally emailed Mr Henley to remonstrate. He replied, with as little contrition as style:
hmmm
had a bit of a debate with myself about that one.
you are of course right, tho at least three reputable sources now say that "all mouth and no trousers" is now the more commonly used, and indeed logical, variant. language must advance, say !

While I'm as supportive of an evolving, living language as the next chap, the 'no trousers' variant really cannot be described as an 'advance', but rather as a barbarism. Shame on you, Mr Henley, for such gormlessness.

A mission statement

2006-10-19T16:59:00.000+01:00

This blog is dedicated to preserving and promoting the great Northern English expression "all mouth and trousers". This mission, sadly, also requires defending this venerable phrase against the more recent Southern perversion "all mouth and no trousers".

The meaning and elegance of the expression has been well explained by Michael Quinion in his Port Out, Starboard Home (extracted here) -

This strange expression comes from the north of England and is used, mainly by women in my experience, as a sharp-tongued and effective putdown of a certain kind of pushy, over-confident male. Proverbial expressions like this are notoriously hard to pin down: we have no idea exactly where it comes from nor when it first appeared, although it is recorded from the latter part of the 19th century onwards. However, we're fairly sure that it is a pairing of "mouth", meaning insolence or cheekiness, with "trousers", a pushy sexual bravado. It's a wonderful example of metonymy ("a container for the thing contained").

The phrase seems to have become known, and surprisingly popular, among southern English writers in the last decades of the 20th century, perhaps as a result of the airing of a series of television comedies based in the North, such as the BBC's Last of the Summer Wine. What is interesting about the saying from a folk etymological point of view is that its opaqueness has led its modern users to reinterpret it as "all mouth and no trousers".

For example, an article in the Daily Record in 2002 quoted a Scottish politician as saying, "The First Minister is all mouth and no trousers"; a piece in the People newspaper described a pop group in the same terms; the Guardian in June 2002 said: "Bloody men. All mouth and no trousers.'' It has reached the stage in which the older, non-negative form is in great danger of vanishing, though Australia and New Zealand seem to be staying with it (when they use it at all, which isn't often).

Metropolitan writers are trying here to make sense of something obscure that they have not often heard in its native surroundings, and are getting it muddled. They confuse it with other put-downs that are conventionally phrased with a negative, such as "all talk and no action" or "all fur coat and no knickers". To have no trousers on is not only embarrassing, the argument seems to go, but is a state in which one is not ready for action (outside the bedroom, that is).

It's a pity it should be changing through ignorance. It's a lovely phrase, as effective a snub as anyone could want – all the better for being slightly obscure – and it's one that ought to be preserved pristine.

This blog will seek to recognise and praise use of the original phrase, and name and shame promulgators of the Metropolitan vulgarisation. Reports of such should be submitted to mouthandtrousers@googlemail.com