Is 押しても引いても a set expression?


I came across this sentence in an anime I am watching. I am wondering if this
is some kind of expression that means something like "no matter which way you
look at it"

I can't seem to find anything in my searches. Could someone please explain
this to me.

The context of this sentence is someone trying to sell a knife to a merchant.
The sentence is the reply of the merchant while inspecting the quality of the
knife:

押しても引いても切れやしない まぁ、ガラクタじゃな




I think it still holds a literal meaning of 押す: push and 引く: pull in your
sentence, so the merchant has confirmed it’s a junk knife since it does not
cut anything after his attempt of pushing and pulling.

You can use it metaphorically when you challenge something. In that case, 押す
means trying to be aggresive and 引く means trying to be defensive. In a
marketing sense, 押し引き may mean estimating the balance of companies' campaign
to the customer.




It is used more or less in the literal sense of pushing and pulling. Maybe you
don't _push_ or _pull_ knives (on the object to be cut) in English, but in
Japanese 押して切る means moving your knife away from you and 引いて切る moving your
knife towards yourself.

Typically, _sashimi_ is a thing you 引いて切る (hence 刺し身を引く means _cut out slices
of sashimi_ ). Cf. [刺し身の引き方 - How to Slice Sashimi at
youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2X0afRMoIWM)

