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“All mouth and trousers” is the kind of phrase you might have first heard on soap operas like Coronation Street, as it comes from the North of England. But it’s not just for people in Manchester to use, unless the rest of the world is suffering an arrogance drought, and we’ve seen your pop stars, we know it’s not.
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 (see below); 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.
The rapper Pitbull is particularly all mouth and trousers. Paris Hilton is all mouth and trousers. David Hasselhoff is all mouth and trousers. P Diddy? Oh you betcha.
Meanwhile, there’s “all mouth and NO trousers,” a more definite expression referring to someone who definitely cannot make good on their boastful claims.
The character Kenneth Branagh plays in the second Harry Potter film is all mouth and no trousers. Jay from The Inbetweeners is all mouth and no trousers.
You could just as easily substitute any of these little beauties, they all mean the same thing: “all bark and no bite,” “all booster and no payload,” “all crown and no filling,” “all foam and no beer,” “all hammer and no nail,” “all icing and no cake,” “all lime and no tequila,” “all shot and no powder,” “all sizzle and no steak,” “all talk and no action,” “all wax and no wick.”
Heck you can even make your own up. Why not try “all Ron and no Harry,” or “all Cowell and no fake exasperation”?
The weird thing is, unlike Ron and Harry, there’s no actual relationship between the words “mouth” and “trousers,” apart from in the expression “all mouth and trousers,” which effectively makes “all mouth and no trousers” a doubly-damning description of someone who aspires to be all mouth and trousers but can’t even manage that.
Of course, should you take the time to point any of this out the next time you hear the phrase, you run the risk of being a bore, which is arguably worse than being all mouth and (no) trousers in the first place.
Are there any British phrases that baffle you? Tell us here:
14 Comments
I’m consistently baffled by Cockney rhyming slang. I just can’t wrap my brain around it.
I do think, however, that “all bark & no bite” differs slightly from “all mouth & trousers.” We’ll use “all bark & no bite” for someone that is very verbally threatening but has no follow-through on what they claim they will do. I wouldn’t call it being too full of oneself, but that you’re almost afraid of them at first because they come off as being a bully and frightening initially. Am I wrong?
“Blimey” — it seems to be used gently as “you’re kidding” sometimes but in a harsher sense at other times.
And who was “Gordon Bennett” and why use his name in vain?
No, I’d say that was fair enough. The point with the “all something and no something” examples is they’re always to do with someone claiming to be something when they’re really not. Some of them are applicable to specific circumstances – like bark/bite – but the idea is the same.
That’s not true of “all mouth and trousers”, because that’s about being overly smug and proud, not deluded. So, I’d say the song “Sexyback” by Justin Timberlake is all mouth and trousers, cos while he is a sexy man, and it is a sexy song, him banging on about being sexy is actually quite an unsexy thing to do.
Suck it and see.
It’s the name of the new Arctic Monkeys album and it dropped a few jaws on this side of the pond.
Hey Stacy,
We did a thing about that a little while ago.
I had no idea that phrase would be such a big deal…
The ” all mouth and NO trousers” version reminds me of our “all hat and no cattle” expression. Same general meaning.
Blighter
Punter
My Amercian wife was extremely puzzled by “‘e legged it. ‘e done a bunk.”: a description of a skedaddling miscreant a while back.
If I remember correctly, saying something is “pants” means it’s bad or at least not good. I think they are referring to underpants, as opposed to the aforementioned trousers.
I have also heard people calling somebody a “toe rag”, which I think is like calling somebody a “jerk” (to use a word that can be used in polite company).
“Pants” I kind of get, but “toe rag”? I want to know more.
Teresa- Gordon Bennett was a newspaper magnate that was known for his outrageous and playboy antics. His father founded the New York Herald but they were Scottish. He died in 1919, had squandered his fortune but is still famous for sending Stanley to find Livingston in Africa other than his shocking behaviour.
What about “tears before bedtime”? I’ve heard this several times in BBC shows. Not sure exactly what the expression means.
safe as houses, mad as pants?
So that’s going to be Britain’s new flag. How fittingly appropriate.
The thought of a thing like that chasing you is enough to make strong men run screaming in terror into the night.