The Secret Life of ‘body’, or the Use of ‘From Head to Toe’ as a euphemism

Only on hearing a Buddhist nun saying she was covered in sweat “all over my body” did I realize that ‘body’ has a secret life as a sexy word.

(Perhaps less tendentiously, I should say the body is sexy, not the word, ‘body’.)

Anyway, since, I have been on the lookout for the use of the phrase, ‘from head to toe’ as a euphemism for ‘all over the body.’

• One

https://storycorps.org/stories/were-like-a-lifeline-postal-workers-fight-fear-to-work-in-a-pandemic is a conversation of a black male postal worker with a black female co-worker.

He says:

My wife has autoimmune disease. So because of that, I fear whenever I leave the house. How do I cope? Well, of course, you know, we wear our masks. Soon as I get home, I’m strippin’. Jumpin in the shower, clean myself from head to toe.

I think this could be called a way of talking about his body that is not provocative., ie a euphemism.

• Two

‘from head to toe’ and its variants appear in song lyrics.

In 1928, Bessie Smith sang:

It starts at my forehead and goes clean down to my toes
It starts at my forehead and goes clean down to my toes
Oh, how I'm sufferin' gypsy, nobody by the good Lord knows

The same year, Blind Lemon Jefferson sang:

She got Elgin movement from her head down to her toe
She got Elgin movement from her head down to her toe
And she can break in on a dollar, man most anywhere she go

In 1947, Bing Crosby sang:

For my Girl's an Irish girl, from her head down to her toes
And no care in the world will harry me, when she promises to marry me
My sweet little Irish Rose

And it continues to the present day, apparently.

https://www.lyrics.land/down-to-my-toes-lyrics

None of the above uses of ‘head to toe’ in lyrics is euphemism, I think. But Blind Lemon Jefferson’s could be innuendo.

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