all show and no go

English

Alternative forms

• all show, no go

Adjective

all show and no go

1. having only superficial qualities
   • 1890, Cosmopolitan, Volume 8, Hearst Corporation, page 107:

     “You know you are, and here you are doing all you can to marry nice, rich, little Kitty Marling to a man,—a kind of piebald circus horse, curious to look at, all show and no go. A duller man I don't know. Romance and you trying your best to keep Kitty from Wrexford, who's a sort of nineteenth-century Sidney.”

   • 2008, Brigitte Gabriel, Because They Hate: A Survivor of Islamic Terror Warns America, St. Martin's Publishing Group, →ISBN, page 82:

     We who could benefit from the UN's taking action felt that they were all show and no go. The UN troops appeared to be some form of international effort to solve a problem, but they were actually making the situation worse.

   • 2013, Steve Farrar, Real Valor: A Charge to Nurture and Protect Your Family, David C Cook, →ISBN, page 72:

     When it came to famine and suffering, he looked for the nearest exit. He failed Hell Week. He was all show and no go. In Texas they have a term for that: Big hat, no cattle.

   • 2014, Tony Perez-Giese, Send More Idiots: A Novel, Archway Publishing, →ISBN, page 197:

     The uniform of tight jeans and tube tops, slinky skirts and three-inch heels, however, is all show and no go.