ENGLISH EXPRESSIONS
That's All She Wrote
Definition:
"That's all she wrote."
=
"There is no more information available."
Application:
People usually use this expression to explain to others
that no more information is available, especially when
others might expect that there may be something more.
Example:
Helen: "Hi, Anna. I heard you're moving to Texas.”
Anna: "Yep. I got a great job offer. "
Brenda: "Really?”
Helen: "What about your condo?”
Anna: "I already sold it. I'm packing up and moving this weekend."
Brenda: "Wow, that's it? Just like that?"
Helen: "Yeah, I'll be in Texas next week and that's all she wrote!”
Notes:
1. Literature Reference: Author Clark Howard uses this expression in a 2012 short story for Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine ("The Street Ends at the Cemetery") to describe the protagonist's fears that his career is finished: "He'd been seen, Cory thought. Seen picking up a convict visitor and driving away from the prison with her! Well, hell, that was all she wrote. As a corrections officer, he was washed up."
2. Media Reference #1: Journalist Mark Bittman uses this expression in a March 30th, 2011 opinion piece for The New York Times ("The Fasting Experience") to describe his record keeping of his fasting: "Day 2 (hour 25): Hunger isn’t really the issue. Overall strangeness and bad internal thermostat are; hot and cold. Occasionally a little weak, but not so much. Feel pretty good. Stomach is there, for sure. At work by 7:30. That’s all she wrote; the rest of yesterday was a blur." (https://bittman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/30/the-fasting-experience )
3. Media Reference #2: A former governor of Pennsylvania, Ed Rendell, uses this expression in an April 26th, 2016 NPR interview ("Like In 2008, Ex-Pa. Governor Says Clinton Will Win State's Democratic Primary") to discuss how a suspicion was dismissed due to lack of information: "Look, the seminal question on the speeches was the question that Dana Bash asked Bernie Sanders in the debate before the New York primary. And he said, could you give us one example of where Hillary Clinton taking money from Wall Street affected her vote? And Bernie Sanders couldn't cite one example. And that's all she wrote." (https://www.npr.org/2016/04/26/475696028/like-in-2008-ex-pa-governor-says-clinton-will-win-states-democratic-primary) (At 2 minutes and 54 seconds into the broadcast.)
4. Media Reference #3: Athena Colón's character of "Yuliana" uses this expression in season 1, episode 2 of the television series Jessica Jones ("AKA Crush Syndrome") to inform another character that no additional information is available in a hospital database: "Uh... looks like it was a slow night. One Charles Wallace, 51, cuts and bruises, the driver. One woman, DOA No John Doe. That's all she wrote, on January 20th." (At 23 minutes and 30 seconds into the episode. Originally aired November 20th, 2015.)
