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All Site ContentTaming of the ShrewAct 4Scene 1
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“curtsy with their left legs”
Cultural Context
Act 4,
Scene 1
Lines 69-77

An explanation of “curtsy with their left legs” in Act 4, Scene 1 of myShakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew.

Curtis

By this reckoning, he is more shrew than she.    

Grumio

Ay, and that thou and the proudest of you all shall
find when he comes home. But what talk I of this? Call
forth Nathaniel, Joseph, Nicholas, Philip, Walter, Sugarsop
and the rest. Let their heads be slickly combed, their
blue coats brushed, and their garters of an indifferent     
knit. Let them curtsy with their left legs, and not presume
to touch a hair of my master's horse-tail till they kiss their
hands. Are they all ready?

The proper way to curtsy is by putting the right leg back and bending the left leg. To do it the other way round is seen as uncouth.