No room for difference of opinion; no alternative. Marlowe and Dryden have a somewhat similar phrase.
1590.
| The Soldan and the Arabian king together | |
| March on us with such eager violence | |
| As if there were no way but one with us. | |
‘Tamburlaine the Great,’ v. 2. (Compare with this Mrs. Quickly in ‘Henry V.,’ ii. 3.) |
1678. If he heard the malicious trumpeter proclaiming his name before his betters, he knew there was no way but one with him.—Preface to ‘All for Love.’
1833. “Gentlemen, good evening,” said he, as he dismounted, “this has been a powerful hot day.” “Very sultry,” replied one of the carriers. “No two ways about that,” said the hunter.—James Hall, ‘The Harpe’s Head,’ pp. 86–7 (Phila.).
1833. “It ’s just a tale—a mere noration,” said Tom, “there ’s no two ways about it.”—The same, ‘Legends of the West,’ p. 51.
1833. If the man was as cold as a wagon tire, provided there was any life in him, she’d bring him to; there’s no two ways about it.—Id., p. 88.
1834. “What do you think of our country?” “It is a rich and beautiful one, sir.” “There’s no two ways about that, sir.”—C. F. Hoffman, ‘A Winter in the Far West,’ ii. 221 (Lond., 1835).
1845. To run without taking a single crack at the inimy, is downright cowardice. There’s no two ways about it, stranger.—W. G. Simms, ‘The Wigwam and the Cabin,’ p. 7 (Lond.).
1847. You and I have got to dovetail, and no two ways about it.—G. F. Ruxton, ‘Adventures in Mexico,’ p. 328.
1852. You must come; there’s no two ways about that.—C. A. Bristed, ‘The Upper Ten Thousand,’ p. 80 (N.Y.).
1861. Twenty-five dollars in tobacco must be raised: there are no two ways about that.—George A. Smith at Logan, Utah, Sept. 10: ‘Journal of Discourses,’ ix. 113.
