ifs, ands, or buts

Reservations or restrictions; excuses. This expression actually mingles two older ones, ifs and ands with but me no buts. The first, dating from the sixteenth century, was more or less the equivalent of wish- ful thinking, and its most famous version is Charles Kingsley’s rhyme of  1850: “If ifs and ans were pots and pans, there’d be no trade for tinkers.” Almost as old is “but me no buts,” meaning make no objections or excuses, which according to Eric Partridge was popularized by Sir Walter Scott’s use of it in The Antiquary (1816). The current cliché is most often used as a neg- ative imperative, as in, “I want this done by tomorrow, and no ifs, ands, or buts.”