more cry than wool

短语
中文释义

英文释义

短语
  1. Dramatic assertions that are backed by little evidence. idiomatic
    — Theſe are the Crimes of which we are guilty, before any Law to prohibit us: it were more allowable to plant Poiſon than to Manufacture with us, and we lie, it ſeems, under ſuch an Obloquy and Clamour, (which, as far as I can judge by your Letter, you alſo liſten to) that, as to import our Cattle to you is a Nuſance, and to export our Wools is Felony ; ſo, by Gradation, to erect here a Manufacture ought to be no leſs than Treaſon. And yet there is more Cry than Wool in all this Matter : For I dare, and do aſſure you, that, modeſtly ſpeaking the whole Quantity of what we work up in Ireland, amounts not to the Half of what any one Clothing-County in England does.

词形变化

all cry and no wool alternative

词源

Derived from the practice of shearing sheep, in which the sheep may "cry" as their wool is removed. The earliest recorded variation appears to be by 15th century English lawyer John Fortescue, who wrote "Moche Crye and no Wull" in De laudibus legum Angliae (c. 1470), ch. x.
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