Heading
Cider. All talk and no cider, phr. (American).—Purposeless loquacity; 'Much cry and little wool.' Literally, much ado about nothing. [For suggested derivation, see quot., 1871.]
1835-40. Haliburton ('Sam Slick'), Clockmaker, 1 S., ch. xxi. It is an expensive kind of honour that, bein' Governor. . . . Great cry and little wool! all talk and no cider.
1858. Notes and Queries, 2 S., v., 233. All talk and no cider. This expression is applied to persons whose performances fall far short of their promises.
1862. C. F. Browne, Artemus Ward: His Book, p. 135. What we want is more cider and less talk.
1871. De Vere, Americanisms, p. 591. This phrase originated at a party in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, which had assembled to drink a barrel of superior cider; but politics being introduced, speeches were made, and discussion ensued, till some malcontents withdrew on the plea that it was a trap into which they had been lured, politics and not pleasure being the purpose of the meeting, or, as they called it, all talk and no cider.
Cider And, subs. phr. (colloquial).—Cider mixed with some other ingredient. Cf., Cold without, Hot with, etc.
1742. Fielding, Joseph Andrews, bk. I., ch. xvi. She then asked the doctor and Mr. Barnabas what morning's draught they chose, who answered, they had a pot of cider-and at the fire.
Cig, subs. (common).—A cigar. [An abbreviation of the legitimate word.] For synonyms, see Weed.
Cinch, verb (American).—To get a
grip on; to 'corner'; to put the
screw on; also, in the passive sense,
to come out on the wrong side in
speculations. [From the Spanish
cincha, a belt or girdle; cinchar,
to girdle. Properly used of the
saddling of horses with the huge
Mexican saddle. To cinch a
horse, however, is by no means
the same as girthing him. The
two ends of the tough cordage
which constitute the cinch terminate
in long narrow strips of
leather called latigos—thongs—which
connect the cinches with
the saddle, and are run through
an iron ring and then tied by a
series of complicated turns and
knots known only to the craft.]
1875. Scribner's Mag., July, p. 277. A man is cinched = he is hurt in a mining transaction (San Francisco localism).
1881. New York Times, Dec. 18, quoted in Notes and Queries, 6 S., v. 65. Cinch. To subdue, to forcibly bind down and overcome. Thus it is unfairly said that the Northern Pacific Company intends to cinch the settlers by exacting large prices for its lands. Query, from Latin cingere.
1888. Daily Inter-Ocean, 2 Feb. Black and Blue thinks the Dwyers have a cinch on both the great events.
1888. New York World, 22 July. The bettor, of whom the pool-room bookmaker stands in dread, however, is the racehorse owner, who has a cinch bottled up for a particular race, and drops into the room an hour or two before the races begin.
Cincinnati Olive, subs. (American).—A pig. [A spurious 'olive oil' is manufactured from lard, and Cincinnati is one of the largest centres of the 'pork packing industry' in America.] Cf., Cincinnati Oysters.
Cincinnati Oysters, subs. (American).—Pigs' trotters. A curious interchange of names occurs between fish, flesh, and fowl. In Cincinnati Oysters we have flesh presented in the guise of fish; and the reverse is the case when the sturgeon is spoken of as Albany beef. Amongst other examples may be quoted marble-head turkey, for a codfish; also, in Nova Scotia a digby chicken = a herring smoked and dried in a peculiar fashion.
