The "trousers" part gives away its British roots immediately. (I learned the hard way to stop referring to my trousers as "pants" when I was in the UK.)
"All talk and no action" would seem to be the American equivalent of this idiom.
I've heard a possibly related idiom - 'all mouth and trousers', meaning vociferous and blustering in a particularly male way (brimming with testosterone )
b
PS oops - just read Tdol's original link.
Last edited by BobK : 23-Nov-2006 at 13:30.
Reason: PS added