Of American-English origin, the phrase to paint someone (especially oneself) into a corner means:
– to force someone into a situation from which it is not easy to escape;
– to oblige someone to follow a restricted, and usually undesirable, course of action.
In this phrase, the image is of someone who is painting a floor and ends up in a corner of the room with wet paint all around them.
—Cf. also the following phrases, in which the verb paint occurs:
– to paint the town red;
– to paint the map red;
– to paint the Forth Bridge.
EARLY LITERAL USES OF THE PHRASE TO PAINT SOMEONE INTO A CORNER
The earliest literal uses that I have found of the phrase to paint someone into a corner are as follows, in chronological order:
1-: From The Choctaw Herald (Hugo, Oklahoma, USA) of Thursday 17th April 1913 [Vol. 7, No. 50, page 3, column 1]:
The woman who can’t drive a nail objects to being told so by a man who paints himself into a corner of the room when painting the floor.
2-: From one of the unconnected paragraphs making up the column Odd Items From Everywhere, published in the Boston Evening Globe (Boston, Massachusetts, USA) of Wednesday 8th April 1914 [Vol. 85, No. 98, page 16, column 2]:
A Worcester fireman acted out a well-known joke when he started to paint a floor and painted himself into a corner. As it happened, however, there was a window, and after putting on the last touch he left the room by way of a ladder.
3-: From one of the unconnected paragraphs making up the column Em-Tees, published in the Medford Mail Tribune (Medford, Oregon, USA) of Thursday 23rd November 1916 [No. 210, page 4, column 1]:
When painting the floor of a room care should be taken not to paint yourself into a corner. This can be avoided by painting in circles so that you’ll be left in the middle.
4-: From The Youth’s Companion: The Best of American Life in Fiction, Fact and Comment (Boston, Massachusetts, USA) of Thursday 3rd February 1921 [Vol. 95, No. 5, page 77, column 2]:
HE NAILED HIMSELF UP FIRMLY
THE man who “painted himself into a corner” when he was renewing the kitchen floor has been excelled in unwariness by a citizen of Oak Harbor, Ohio. We agree with the Chicago Tribune, which tells the story, in thinking that he got himself into a much more distressing predicament than his famous predecessor.
Instead of getting up on the roof that he was making, John stood on a timber in the attic and thrust his head up between two rafters, in order to nail on some boards. Having driven his last nail, he tossed the hammer to the ground, and then discovered that he had placed the boards so close together that he could not withdraw his head from between them. Imagination shrinks from contemplating what John must have gone through while he was being released.
5-: From the column Sunbeams, published in The San Diego Sun (San Diego, California, USA) of Saturday 21st May 1921 [No. 13,399, page 9, column 6]:
Doing a little extraneous floor painting in his home, Cole Avery, meat cutter, was very careful not to paint himself into a corner. He had been warned against that trick of novice painters.
But he painted past the electric light and had to let it burn for two days before he could get to it to turn it out.
6-: From one of the unconnected paragraphs making up the column Skillebooch!, by ‘Tirador del Toro’, published in The Tacoma Daily Ledger (Tacoma, Washington, USA) of Saturday 5th August 1922 [Vol. 40, No. 94, page 8, column 4]:
HAS CLOSE CALL WITH DEATH
SHERBET, Ida., Aug. 4.—Nicotine Croup, an aged man living in an isolated farm house beyond Antenna, 12 miles from here, narrowly escaped death by starvation last week, it was learned today. The old man went three days and nights without food, due to a peculiar accident. While making some renovations in his home, Old Nick is said to have unthinkingly painted himself into a corner. “Lucky for me,” he is quoted as saying, “that I bought quick-drying paint.”
EARLY FIGURATIVE USES OF THE PHRASE TO PAINT SOMEONE INTO A CORNER
The earliest figurative uses that I have found of the phrase to paint someone into a corner are as follows, in chronological order:
1-: From The Nation’s Business, published in The Financial Post (Toronto, Ontario, Canada) of Friday 12th April 1929 [Vol. 23, No. 15, page 1, column 1]:
PREMIER KING 1 ON OUR TARIFF POLICY
PREMIER KING never made a more business-like address than his contribution this week to the debate on the budget. […]
[…] Mr. King has had plenty of gratuitous advice as to what the government’s policy should be and it would not have been difficult to make immature and premature statements that might later bind the country to a mistaken course of policy. But Mr. King has not painted himself into a corner and his refusal to commit the government to a policy of fighting back, when the extent of American fiscal aggression is not known, or of trying to buy off the Americans by committing the country to policies that are not yet ripe for determination, is to be commended as sound and courageous.
1 This refers to the then Prime Minister of Canada, William Lyon Mackenzie King (1874-1950).
2-: From the column Along Life’s Detour, by Sam Hill, published in The Cincinnati Enquirer (Cincinnati, Ohio, USA) of Saturday 25th October 1930 [Vol. 90, No. 199, page 4, column 8]—I have included this quotation because, although to paint oneself into a corner is used literally, it is associated with to get someone into a corner, which is used figuratively:
Many a chump has painted himself into a corner when redecorating the kitchen floor, but the real pathetic figure is the husband who has let his wife get him into a corner.
3-: From Borah 2 Spills the Beans, published in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram (Fort Worth, Texas, USA) of Wednesday 22nd June 1932 [Vol. 52, No. 143, page 6, column 1]:
There will be deliverers of messages who will announce, “The Republican platform gives you anti-prohibitionists your big opportunity. If you don’t hop to it and do your stuff don’t blame Hoover and the Republicans.”
And now comes Senator Borah who spills the beans! The idea was to let the Democrats do the denouncing so the Republicans could shrug off the charges as ordinary Democratic twaddle.
However, the Senator didn’t paint himself into a corner while he was giving the platform a going over. He has an exit of his own preparation. If the President glosses over the situation properly in his speech of acceptance the Senator reserves the right to shed his recalcitrancy.
2 This refers to William Borah (1865-1940), Republican U.S. Senator from Idaho from 1907 until his death.
4-: From the column Just Fishing, by Vernon Hagelin, published in the Moline Daily Dispatch (Moline, Illinois, USA) of Tuesday 2nd May 1933 [page 17, column 3]:
The lesson […] has to do with not starting something you may not be able to finish. This truth applies in all lines of endeavor, of course, but it has special application in angling. All of us are familiar with the sight of fishermen sitting on high dams or banks, from which it would be impossible to land a good-sized fish if one were hooked. There is the man who likes to sit in the shade while a long bamboo keeps his cork well out into the current, and who suddenly and painfully discovers that the limbs which make the shade refuse to move out of the way for the fishpole, even though the man is trying to land a fish supper. Too, in easing a bait under a pile of brush which really should conceal a catfish or carp, it is well to plan in advance how to ease the catfish or carp out, providing one is hooked.
Don’t paint yourself into a corner.
5-: From the following cartoon, by Enright, published in the Washington Herald (Washington, District of Columbia, USA) of Thursday 18th May 1933 [Vol. 11, No. 177, page 6, columns 2 & 3]:
Painting Himself Into a Bad Corner
WEAK NATIONAL DEFENSE
Nine Army service schools to be shut down temporarily.
Hundreds of trained officers to be put aside.
One-third of the Navy and of the air fleets to be laid up at a time—and perhaps the Marine Corps to be abolished entirely.
Uncle Sam is doing these things by order of the Director of the Budget.
False economy which impairs the national defense is dangerous economy.
And Uncle Sam will have to undo all that he has done in order to get out of the corner in which he finds himself.
6-: From the column Confidential Chat, published in the Boston Evening Globe (Boston, Massachusetts, USA) of Wednesday 10th January 1934 [Vol. 125, No. 10, page 25, column 4]:
Don’t be afraid to start something because you feel that you might not finish it. Sometime you will paint yourself up into a corner and will have to get out the best way you can. You will get out, too, all covered with war paint and learn that you can finish things up to the Queen’s taste.
7-: From the column Cook-Coos, by Ted Cook, published in The Eau Claire Leader (Eau Claire, Wisconsin, USA) of Sunday 6th September 1936 [Vol. 55, No. 212, page 9, column 2]:
Q. and A. DEPARTMENT
Dear Aunt Bella:
I’ve never gone out with a girl until recently, because I’m so bashful and I don’t know what it’s like to get all involved. Give me some advice, Aunt Bella, because I don’t want to make a mistake. Shucks, maybe I’m just not the marryin’ kind.—Bewildered.
Ans.—Well, you great big mans, did you ever try to paint the floor and paint yourself into a corner? Think it ovah.
—A. (“Understatement”) Bella.
8-: From the column What Goes On, by Mary Towne, published in The Courier-Journal (Louisville, Kentucky, USA) of Thursday 6th July 1939 [Vol. 170, No. 25,754, page 10, column 7]:
Wasn’t that a killer-diller-thriller? That last Agatha Cristie [sic] murder mystery in the Sat. Eve. Post. In the story EVERYBODY, murderer and all, got bumped off and a final chapter explained how, plausibly. That was a shock to me because I had a feeling that this time good old Agatha had gone too far, painted herself into a corner of her kitchen, as it were. Even the Sat. Eve. Post editors thought there was no guessable solution, so, in a facetious spirit, they offered a tommy gun and a G-man badge to the reader who first discovered killer and motives.
Miss Godwin Carroll, a Wellesley student, figured it out after ONE installment and now she will have the fun of playing Dick Tracy whenever she pleases.
9-: From the Tide (Pacific Grove, California, USA) of Friday 1st September 1939 [Vol. 50, No. 40, page 8, column 3]:
THE MODERN CÆSAR CUTS A SORRY FIGURE
Benito Mussolini this month becomes the man who has been painting a beautiful, shining floor, but too late has discovered that he has painted himself off into a corner of the room, from whence there is no escape without spoiling the job he has done. If ever an international figure got himself out on the end of the limb, Il Duce is he.
At the present writing, men do not know whether war is to be averted or not. Mussolini, realizing all too well the precarious spot Hitler has made for him, doubtless is exerting every effort toward peace. He has everything to lose and practically nothing to gain from another great conflict.
10-: From one of the unconnected paragraphs making up the column Peregrinations, by ‘H. L. H.’, published in the Rutland Daily Herald (Rutland, Vermont, USA) of Friday 8th December 1939 [Vol. 86, No. 293, page 8, column 4]:
News item of the future: The pinball machines will be relicensed despite the growing protests of the non-playing public. Reasons in order: The Legislature voted that way. The state needs the money. State officials have painted themselves into a corner and can’t do otherwise.
11-: From The State (Columbia, South Carolina, USA) of Friday 8th December 1939 [No. 19,076, page 8, column 1]:
John O’Reilly, a reporter for the New York Herald Tribune, came to South Carolina and wrote a series of articles about the Santee-Cooper development. In one of those articles this statement is made:
“Taxes on industry in South Carolina are now higher than in almost any Southern state. It is also pointed out that the punitive damage law, the tax on intangibles and other laws now in effect keep persons with money from becoming residents of the state or from starting industries there.”
Read that carefully and you will see it is a careful statement. Mr. O’Reilly does not paint himself into a corner by any direct unqualified declaration concerning South Carolina’s taxes and laws and customs. But he does give expression to a general opinion apparently widely held in industrial circles.
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