"show ankle" query

[Douglas G. Wilson]

>     Today I received a request from William Safire's assistant, Juliet
> Mohnkern, concerning a recent NY Times use of "show ankle":
>  'Former White House officials said they were surprised to hear of any
> rift between Mr. Rove and Mr. Libby. ''One of their strengths was that
> they worked together,'' said Lawrence B. Wilkerson, a former State
> Department official who has become a critic of how the administration had
> handled Iraq.  "They didn't show any ankle -- it was always a team effort."'
>
>     I explained that showing ankle derives from the days when well-bred
> women would not not show their ankles in public, and to do so was a
> decided bit of coquetishness. Cf. the dual outside staircases before some
> homes in the South--one coming from the right and the other from the
> left--so that the men and women would not go up the same one and produce
> the risk of a man catching a glimpse of the ankle of a woman ahead of him.

Certainly that is one possible interpretation. However, it's not obvious to
me that it's the appropriate one here.

Here is another example from the Web, from 2003:

<<Mr. Blair seems genuinely convinced that Iraq poses a threat to Britain,
and several British officials said in interviews that it was critical not
to show any public differences in tactics with Mr. Bush. / "You can't show
any ankle at all in an operation like this," one official said, "because
the inspections only work if the forces on Saddam's borders are a credible
threat." He paused, and added, "You would think the Germans would
understand that.">>

 From 2005:

<<Koppel: "All right. If that's a $3 trillion cut, and if you're not the
only guy in Washington smart enough to have see that. . . . Why didn't
anybody stand up and say, whoa, wait a second, Mr. President, what about
that $3 trillion cut?" / Later, the Financial Times editor weighed in on
that question. / Barber: "Yes the President did show some ankle, so to
speak. But none of the reporters went on to, to actually take some chunks
at the question and nail down what the news was. They were all too
interested in their own little question, before the millions of people
around America on camera.">>

Judging from these examples, "show ankle" would be expected to mean "show
weakness/vulnerability" or so. Why would it mean that? Perhaps it's a play
on "ankle-biter" = "pesky dog/varmint"/"bad child" = "despicable/petty
attacker" or so. Doesn't seem perfect, but ....

OTOH ... from 1998:

<<Q I mean, you mentioned something this morning about a pension proposal
that the President will have. Is there anything -- can you show any ankle
on that? / MR. MCCURRY: Should I? Can I do that? Can I just leak it?>>

Here it might mean just "reveal something". Still to a political spokesman
revealing anything might be dangerous, might incite ankle-biting. Or maybe
"show ankle" is meant to mean "tease with a slight revelation" (following
Gerald Cohen's suggestion) here ... but that wouldn't seem to fit the other
items, above.

Other possibilities in principle:

(1) "Not show ankle" = "keep one's socks up" = "get one's act together" or so.

(2) It has some other sense which we haven't thought of.

(3) It doesn't mean squat; somebody just figured it sounded hip.

-- Doug Wilson


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