all duck or no dinner

• duck or no dinner; no duck, no dinner

First use appears in Australian English c. 1895.

all duck or no dinner

1. (idiomatic) All or nothing.

   Synonym: no fish, no dinner

   • 2004, Bill Cullen, It's a Long Way from Penny Apples:

     "You know," said Bob, "they'll be pushing their luck getting across the tides of the Irish Sea. It's going to be all duck or no dinner for Captain Carlsen.”

   • 2006, Mark Gray, Rhetoric and Social Justice in Isaiah, page 223:

     This is what might be termed an all-duck-or-no-dinner approach in which “a univocal meaning” containing no “ anti-liberationist❞ strain is sought.

   • 2020, Ross Fitzgerald, Fifty Years Sober: An Alcoholic's Journey:

     The afternoon I moved out of home, my father said, 'You're all duck or no dinner', which still applies to me today, although I can sometimes moderate the extremes.