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The meaning and origin of the expression: Toe-curling

Toe-curling

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What's the meaning of the phrase 'Toe-curling'?

Something that is 'toe-curlingly embarrassing' is discomforting enough as to make one squirm and curl one's toes in response.

What's the origin of the phrase 'Toe-curling'?

The meaning and origin of the phrase 'Toe-curling'.The date of origin of this American phrase is rather uncertain. In 1901, George Ade published his humorous 'fractured fables' Forty modern fables. This contains an allusion to toe-curling in the sense of embarrassing:

"When they struck a Barber-Shop Minor they would Dwell until the unhappy Listener felt his Toes curling."

That isn't an example of the precise phrase as we use it now, but is is clearly not far away.

'Toe-curling' was a common phrase in the USA in the 1950s but it was used to convey a sense of pleasure rather than embarrassment. There are many advertisements from around that time that refer to deep-pile carpets or blankets that offered "toecurling warmth" etc. Another, more figurative, example comes from the letters page of the California newspaper The Oakland Tribune, July 1950:

I was perfectly content with, "Gee, I love you, Freckle-Face," until that awful person had to go and inform me that only old fogies with one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel didn't give out with poetic, dynamic and toe-curling phrases like "Your eyes are like limpid pools - Your lips are like etc." My husband NEVER said things like that to me.

'Toe-curling' in the sense of embarrassing isn't found until the 1960s and so is probably derived independently of Ade's version. The Jamaican newspaper The Gleaner, printed this in November 1962:

"I recall disgracing myself into flushing, toe-curling nervousness by dropping, and cracking... my huge, much-decorated heavy chamber pot!"

Gary Martin - the author of the phrases.org.uk website.

By Gary Martin

Gary Martin is a writer and researcher on the origins of phrases and the creator of the Phrase Finder website. Over the past 26 years more than 700 million of his pages have been downloaded by readers. He is one of the most popular and trusted sources of information on phrases and idioms.

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