SHAGGY DOG:WE ALL know what a barefaced lie is, don't we? It is an obvious lie told without shame or guilt.
In its original form, it indicated a fresh honesty, as a clean-shaven face could not conceal untruths or hidden meanings, whereas all manner of duplicity could be hidden beneath a beard. In time, it came to describe a person who didn't care whether they were lying and had no real intention of concealing their deception.
To call a person a toerag is mildly offensive, although these days it is considered cheeky rather than insulting. The first recorded use dates back to Experiences of a Convict(1864) by JF Mortlock, who writes: "Stockings are unknown, so some luxurious men wrapped around their feet a piece of old shirting, called, in language more expressive than elegant, a 'toerag'." By "stockings" he means socks, which were a luxury that vagrants, for centuries prior to that, were unable to afford.
To avoid the discomfort of worn-out boots, they would tear strips of cloth from old shirts and wrap them around their feet in place of socks. Often these were the only items of clothing they would wash. George Orwell brought this to wider knowledge in Down and Out in Paris and London(1933): "Less than half the tramps actually bathed (I heard them say that hot water is 'weakening' to the system, but they all washed their faces and feet, and the horrid greasy little clouts known as toerags which they bind around their toes)."
This was quickly picked up and used in cockney rhyming slang to describe a "slag" (convict or lag). In the 1970s, the police series The Sweeneyregularly used "toerag" to describe a troublemaker.
Extracted fromShaggy Dogs and Black Sheep by Albert Jack (Penguin Books)