Meaning:
Something that is `toe-curlingly embarrassing' is discomforting enough as to
make one squirm and curl one's toes in response.
Background:
The date of origin of this American phrase is rather uncertain ...
`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!"
- www.phrases.org.uk [edited]
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In the hotspring pool at a Banff hotel, my poorly executed sumersault made a big
splash which drew angry stares from children and shunning glances from adults
nearby. My wife turned away as if she didn't know me. I was about 30 and it was
one of the toe-curling moments on my journey to the West. In Chinese, we say "wish
to disappear into a crack in the earth."
