“Toe the Line” vs. “Tow the Line”

Hello, you have A Way with Words?

Hi.

Hi, who’s this?

This is Ms. Gallup at Hoover High School.

Oh, fantastic.

Well, we’re always glad to have teachers. What can we do for you?

Okay, I called you because in teaching my English class, we were working on little sayings. I think they were called cliches on the sheet we were working on. One of them said, toe the line. Now, I know what toe the line is, but my students don’t necessarily know what it is. So I’m reading it, and it’s T-O-E. And I said, that’s funny. In my mind, it would be T-O-W, the line. So I asked my ex-husband, and he said, no, it’s T-O-E. Step up, put your toe up on the line and speak. And I said, okay, that works. But what about towing a line as in towing a car, towing a water skier? You have to get in line and just move straight ahead and stay where you are. So which one is it is my question.

Yes, and so the meaning of this is to sort of, what, straighten up and behave? Yeah, straighten up and fly right, get in line, don’t make a fuss, do what you’re expected to do. That’s how I read it. And so that’s why I thought tow was so funny, T-O-E, because I thought, what does a toe have to do with it?

Okay, okay. Well, you’ll appreciate the fact that toe in this case is a verb. T-O-E is functioning as a verb. So if you toe the line, you’re sticking your toes right up to the line, getting right on the mark. And in fact, toe the line, T-O-E, was a survivor of a whole lot of phrases in the 19th century that were sort of along the same line, so to speak. Because you could toe the mark or toe the scratch. And if you take the line out of it, then you stop thinking that something’s being pulled. Because you can’t really pull on a mark, right?

Right.

Right. Yeah, so it’s the idea of just aligning as precisely as you can, really focusing your attention. So what environments are we talking about? Where might this come from?

Well, do you have any guesses?

I have radio, maybe? I don’t know.

Are you kidding? Radio? That’s what my husband said. You’ve got to put your toe up on the line. Well, there is a mark in a lot of acting, including old radio, where you might have a lot of microphones and you need to position on the stage in a certain way so that the stereo effect works. But, yeah, that could be it.

Okay. But more likely, it’s the military line. You know, you’re at attention and you’re all in a row and you’re beautiful in your regalia and everybody’s perfectly shaped and perfectly formed and the limbs are in the right position, right?

Yeah.

And you’re on a line. Actually half, like down to the centimeter, right?

Yeah, yeah.

Or athletics. Athletics, right. In a race. You’re right there at the starting line. You’ve got the blocks, right? And nobody’s supposed to have an advantage over anyone else.

Right, right. You’re, in effect, towing the starting line.

Right, very good. I got you. And so they were right and I was wrong. But you know what? The cool thing about this is that with all this great history behind this term and the different contexts, which it appears, it doesn’t really matter that you misunderstood because there’s just something new to be learned, and you’re a teacher, and so you can spread the word, right?

I will do that now. I’m very happy to get that. And, you know, I did think, well, toe the line actually could be it. I just needed someone to suggest it to me because I hadn’t thought of it that way. But I appreciate the idea that it could have something to do with pulling a rope or a cable or something. When I hear toe the line, even though I know that it’s actually T-O-E, I think of the song Eerie Canal. I think of the mule sow pulling those barges up the canal, towing the line, literally towing a line. So I could totally get how that mental image would just pop into your head.

Yeah, and I think that’s what it was, too. I think there’s a picture in my head of that mule pulling that barge up the canal.

Right, right. Well, rock on. Educate those kids well, will you?

I will. Thank you so much.

Okay, take care.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

Bye-bye.

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