I'm reading the as-told-to memoir, No Quittin' Sense, of a black man born and raised in East Texas circa 1895. He quotes the expression "all fire and toe".
After we left, Marthy said "She's all fire and toe, ain't she?"
What does it mean?
Thanks in advance.
OED reports finding 'toe' as a variant spelling of 'tow' in the 17th and 18th centuries. The two words are also often homophones in both UK and US English.
The 'toe' in "fire and toe" from Marthy's comment in No Quittin' Sense is more likely a transcription error based on homophony than a variant spelling of 'tow': No Quittin' Sense is the "author's life story, based on tape recordings of his own narrative, and written down in book form by A. M. Holland" (description at entry for book on Internet Archive).
tow, n.1
....
2. a. The fibre of flax, hemp, or jute prepared for spinning by some process of scutching.
This 'tow' (still commonly appearing as part of the compound 'towheaded', that is, white-blond), is highly flammable, and as such the word was paired with 'fire' in now obsolete "allusive expressions ... as an example of two things that should not be brought into proximity" with the general meaning "to do or say something that may cause trouble, controversy, or upset" (OED, fire n, P4b).
Exegesis of Marthy's comment about Miss Tish ("She's all fire and toe, ain't she?") is, of course, not appropriate here; the general meaning, however, that Miss Tish is liable "to do or say something that may cause trouble, controversy, or upset", remains clear.
OED first attests the figure 'fire and tow' with a quote from a work by Chaucer composed around 1395, and the etymology of 'tow' (n.1, op. cit.) notes that the word is not known before the "last quarter of [the] 14th cent." I have not found any earlier instances. Widespread (but not common) use of the figure in fiction and newspaper reporting continues into the early 20th century.
The phrase is much older than I suspected:
Change of Cheare, OR A Banquet of Jests. (Anonymous 1634 fifth edition) p125
"One seeing a fellow warming his feet by a hot Sea-coale fire: My friend saith he, what doe you mean to put Fire and Toe together."
and from "Matrimonial customs, or, The various ceremonies and divers ways of celebrating weddings practised amongst all the nations in the whole world done out of French. *The Third Treatise. Of Nuptial Rites, or Ceremonies, of Marriages practised amongst Ido∣laters and Pagans.* by Louis de Gaya. (1687)
She also ordained that Women should go with naked Neck and Breasts, to the end that, exposing a Samplar of their Wares, they might the sooner allure Customers. The Men of that Country are very shy in their matching, and very fearful lest they should light upon a Crack-piece; for, to say the Truth, their Maids are generally all Fire and Toe.
From the above, and other sources, to be all fire and toe: seems to mean to be "hot-headed"; given to high emotion and dramatic action. Probably a reference to the torture of burning the feet and the agitated reaction that this caused.
I discovered a newspaper reference to the expression in 1967. The Daily Banner,Greencastle, Putnam County, 15 March 1967 - Andrew (Old Hickory) Jackson was a man all fire-and-toe, a harsh and tireless soldier and politician, a circuit judge who demanded one time that a drunken rowdy come down from a tree or “by the eternal” a bullet would find his heart.
"Fire and to[w]" is a warning against "sexual immorality," or more literally can be taken to mean "disaster."
It derives from an analogy in the Bible, specifically Isaiah 1:29–31:
29 For they shall be ashamed of the oaks which ye have desired, and ye shall be confounded for the gardens that ye have chosen.
30 For ye shall be as an oak whose leaf fadeth, and as a garden that hath no water.
31 And the strong shall be as tow, and the maker of it as a spark, and they shall both burn together, and none shall quench them.
Isaiah dislikes the fact that Israeli pagans use oak trees to worship those he considers "false gods." The worshipping rituals may have included "sexual immorality," according to biblical interpretation. And thus he is comparing the pagans to hay, and their rituals will be the spark that burns them when God's judgement comes.
The first known use of this phrase, according to the other answers that cite OED, comes from a work from English poet Geoffrey Chaucer. That work is the proto-feminist The Wife of Bath's Tale (written between 1387–1400), in the part where the wife of Bath is quoting St. Paul advocating for virginity.
Al were it good no womman for to touche,
He mente, as in his bed or in his couche;
[95] For peril is bothe fyr and tow t'assemble;
Ye knowe what this ensample may resemble.
In Modern English:
And though it were good to touch no woman's flesh,
He meant, as in his bed or on his couch;
For it is peril for fire and tow to assemble;
You know what this example may resemble.
Or she might be referring to the Bal des Ardents accident in the French court in 1393, within the time period this work was written, where four people were killed by fire from a torch that lit their flax costumes ablaze.
I have not read the book you mentioned, but I think Marthy is probably trying to say "She's promiscuous." or "She's a recipe for disaster."
I could only find this one written instance - which can't be the same as that puzzling OP, since mine is spoken by a female, of a female. My guess is it's a (euphemistic?) alternative to all piss and vinegar (full of beans, lively, energetic, which Merriam-Webster euphemistically define as all spit and vinegar).
But unless anyone can show some convincing evidence to the contrary, I think so far as origin is concerned, it's a corruption / miscopying of all fire and brimstone. Here are a number of written instances of She's all fire and brimstone.
EDIT: Just found this letter dated 1834...
[Some outraged local citizens] got up some letters full of fire, and toe, and brimstone, and bloody murder...
...which arguably suggests the speaker there didn't think of toe and brimstone as being "the same word". But that doesn't mean they're not.
"all fire and tow" with little doubt refers on a literal level to the flame that leaps out when the wick of a candle catches fire before burning down to the point where the wax moderates the flame and it burns steadily.
So I suspect the figurative meaning is to be found in what it would mean to compare a person to that sudden and short-lived flare of flame: the person could be a gossip, or someone insubstantial, i.e. who talks nonsense or who is all talk and no action, one whose words are "empty".
Just like Dan's nonsense, all fire and tow. I s'pose he thought it would sound smart. I hope he split up a few kindlin's for his poor feeble old mother before he went. I see her when I come by yisterday hacking away in the wood house with a dull axe. I should think he'd be ashamed to go strutting round the way he does.
"The Mate of the Daylight" by Sarah Orne Jewett (in The Atlantic, July 1882)
But David N. Mielke in Teaching Mountain Children: Towards a Foundation of Understanding (Appalachian Consortium, 1978) says "all fire and tow" refers to "A high-tempered person" (see pp. 18-19) .
