Mine is tow the line rather than toe the line.

I imagine someone as a tugboat–towing the line of what is expected. I like that imagery better than keeping a foot on some fucking line. Plus using toe as a verb is dumb.

What are yours?

  • Carrolade@lemmy.worldEnglish
    11·
    2 days ago

    For the traditional toe the line imagery, it helps to imagine a very rebellious kid that you have firmly told to absolutely not cross some line under any circumstances.

    Imagine the kid looking you dead in the eye and smirking, as they stretch out their big toe and put it all over the line while barely not crossing it.

    This captures the aspect that you don’t have to follow the spirit of the rules or believe in them in any way, you simply have to follow the letter of the instruction to be “toeing the line”. There is an inherent malicious coloring to the term that is important, where people that only toe the line are bad people.

    edit: It needs to imply that you’re searching for ways to break a rule and get away with it on a technicality.

    edit2: This got me curious enough to google the origin of the term, and it actually has a wikipedia article, amusingly. Apparently it has a military origin, and the article makes no mention of the negative connotations I mentioned. This makes me think my personal interpretation is actually incorrect, and I now wonder why I picked up on it. In the US, toeing the line does have a subtle negative connotation to it, and people that do it are looked down on somewhat.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toe_the_line

    • meco03211@lemmy.world
      8·
      2 days ago

      This is vastly different than my understanding of the phrase. I understand it to mean something similar to “fall in line”. As in conform to some standard. I think it was supposed to have originated in the military where they would have a literal piece of tape in the ground at the foot of your bunk. When a drill sergeant or officer would come through you were expected to “toe the line”. Meaning stand at attention with your toes exactly touching the line.

    • JigglySackles@lemmy.world
      2·
      1 day ago

      Eh I’m in the US and wouldn’t say it’s a negative connotation so much as firm or strict one. More neutral than positive or negative. That said…it’s also slightly contextual though.

      Regular context of guiding a kid or a team that’s been in trouble for something(“we better toe the line going forward”), it’s more neutral. But you can use it slightly derisively for someone that’s a stickler or brown noser, (“Don’t do anything cheeky around Dan, he really toes the line and will go tattle to the manager.”)

      Anyways, just throwing my two cents to the wind.