That there’s some kind of relationship between the foot and the mouth has been in circulation since at least the 1870s, with some sources insisting it was much earlier than that – around the 1700s. It’s an idea that any interrelationship between the foot and the mouth can only ever be inglorious, shameful or painful. Influenced of course by the realities of hoof and mouth disease, whereagain, there are conflicting accounts of its first appearance.

Some claim it to have been first documented in 1870. Others peg its first written description as early as 1514, in Italy.

It’s a virus. And actually more than one.

Like a Wonder of the World, there are seven. Endemic across different countries, each strain requires a specific vaccine. Geographically, the origin of the foot-and-mouth disease virus was Mediterranean, before it spread to Europe and subsequently Asia and South America.

Highly contagious, it causes severe pain, distress, fever and blisters in the mouth and on the feet of cloven-hoofed livestock. There’s a 20% mortality rate for infected juveniles. Whilst the majority of affected adult animals recover, they’re often left weakened and debilitated.

With this, it’s easy to see how the idea of an interaction between two extremes of the body would mean that ultimately, it’s never a good thing. Regardless of the impressive gymnastics.

All that’s been mentioned so far, is the far more common combination of foot, with mouth; encompassing the long-standing livestock disease, as well as familiar phrasing. To put your foot in it, or to put your foot in your mouth, denotes an unfortunate, unmanaged, and ungainly verbal stumbling from which one will barely recover.

If that’s not its own reward, it’s even its own award.

The Foot in Mouth Award came about in 1993. A time when Meatloaf was doing anything for love (but he wouldn’t do that), titular idiots Beavis and Butt-Head started sniggering opinions, Fellini dropped dead, and we formed our own ideas about what it was that was eating Gilbert Grape.

Given for the most baffling comment made by a public figure, the Foot in Mouth Award has been granted 20 times, to sixteen recipients.

It’s a tribute that continues to live and breathe in the UK under the auspices of the Plain English Campaign which has been “Fighting for crystal-clear communication since 1979”.

With The Straight Dope “Fighting ignorance since 1973 – it’s taking longer than we thought” there are stark reminders that in the 1970s people wanted clear, unambiguous answers to all the curly questions.

They wanted to be sure that Don Henley and Glenn Frey weren’t talking about being “on a dark dessert highway, Cool Whip in my hair” in terms of Hotel California; and whether or not it referred to an asylum, the pitfalls of living in southern California, or a song-worthy term for an existential addiction.

Unsurprisingly, and as one who has dodged many such questions, former British prime minister Boris Johnson has won the Foot in Mouth twice. And it would certainly have been remiss for any of the recent US presidents to have not gotten a guernsey.

2003’s US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s weapons of mass destruction press conference earned that year’s Foot in Mouth Award. A year later Australian soul jazz fusion band Junglehammer released ‘Desert Rain’: Rumsfeld’s speech, verbatim, to music composed by Lindsay Page and James Guiney, beautifully articulated by the mellifluous Mark Bower.

George W. Bush is the only person on the planet to have earned himself a Lifetime Achievement Award for “services to gobbledygook” throughout his entire presidency.

For many reasons, foot-and-mouth has a certain flow; a strident hand-in-hand cadence that feet-and-teeth misses. Though it’s the possible connection between the feet and teeth rather than the mouth, that’s up for dwindled, diminished and decreased dissertation here.

In terms of the human body there is nothing more systemically distant than teeth and feet.

Yet to routinely dismiss a connection between the two, is as unreasonable as denying a relationship between the brain and the little toe. Eastern medicine already establishes an alleged direct link between particular teeth and specific organs via meridians.

It gives insight to dental and non-dental issues alike when for example, an infection in the body will be mirrored in the corresponding tooth.

So why not contemplate the possibility of a useful correlation between the feet and teeth?

There is growing interest in determining possible connections between the stomatognathic system and posture, with the stomatognathic system being the complex anatomical tissue structures within the mouth and the craniofacial cavity.

Within this, are those who adhere to the world of neuro-occlusal rehabilitation where there is great importance put on hard, dry and fibrous chewing.

There is also a school of thought with the belief that the feet are related to the mouth and eyes.

There are kinesiologists who can demonstrate the descending connection of the jaw with the feet, raising the question of the usefulness of special insoles.

Among it, is the considerable controversy as to whether any clinical study observations are at all relevant.

There is a hypothesis that functional disturbances of the masticatory muscles in chewing and swallowing are transmitted along “muscle chains” creating disorders of postural asymmetry, and conditions that particularly affect the musculature of the head, neck, shoulder, lower back, leg and feet.

One study used electromyography to reveal a functional relationship between muscles used for chewing and grinding, and leg muscles after artificially creating orthodontic malocclusions or bite misalignment.

Body posture can be roughly defined as the position of the head and torso with respect to gravity and internal references. It’s a static moment with limited periods of movement; whereas balance is a dynamic moment, that can be maintained even with minor or major kinetic influences.

Then there’s postural attitude.

Defined as the general posture of body joints at a given time, postural attitude includes postural change, which can affect a variety of systems – including the stomatognathic one.

It means that the position and health of teeth can be influenced by disorders and rotations of the feet, legs, spine, pelvis and chest. Alterations in the body-muscle balance can influence jaw position and change facial morphology.

Essentially, limited research means there are variables that haven’t been considered. It’s anticipated that aspects like body mass index, sex, ethnicity and physical activity levels would influence results.

If they don’t, and if it were to eventually be proven that there’s no discernable relationship at all between the feet and the teeth, then somebody really does have foot in mouth disease. No prizes there.

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