Toe vs. Tow the Line

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Julie from Memphis, Tennessee.

Hi, Julie. Welcome to the show.

Hey, Julie.

Hi. So glad to be talking to you guys.

It’s great to be talking with you as well. What’s on your mind today?

So the other day I was doing a crossword puzzle, and the solution to this one line I knew should be toe the line, and I was spelling it T-O-W, and it kept telling me that was wrong. It was a digital crossword puzzle. So it turned out it was supposed to be T-O-E.

So then I went into my office and I asked my coworkers, you know, the expression toe the line. How do you spell toe? And everybody except for this one young lady, Devin, said T-O-W, toe the line. And she said T-O-E.

So we debated about it and we had different meanings of it a little bit. The ones of us who said TOW said, you know, like, carry your own weight, do what you’re expected kind of thing. And then I’ll let Devin explain what she thought the TOE was.

Okay.

Hi. So my name is Devin, also from Memphis, Tennessee. So like she said, I was the only one in our room and in my family who thought it was TOE. And in my head, it was kind of you were doing something that you knew could get you in trouble, but you were just enough behind the line or on it that you couldn’t technically get in trouble for it. Basically like just using a loophole to get around a rule without actually breaking the rule.

So that’s why I was always thinking it was toe the line because in my head, it was like the mental image of you were putting the toe on the line, but not crossing it. So when I asked my family about that, my mom said the same thing of, you know, it’s you pulling your own weight, doing this, that, the other. My dad actually used to work on a ship, but he said he’s hurt it both ways. But his was also because you put your foot on the line for a race. Specifically, you put the big toe of your left foot on the starting line, which is where the phrase, when we looked it up, it said that it originally started, and then it evolved into something along the lines of you stay within the boundaries.

Oh, my goodness. There’s so much to unpack here.

Right, but it sounds like Julie and Devin represent both sides of this, because a lot of people do think it’s T.O.W. Toe the Line, and the original was T.O.E. Toe the Line.

It was indeed. Yeah. Back in the 19th century, we see the expression to toe the line. And we know that that’s the original one because there were also other versions of this, like toe the mark or toe the scratch or toe the crack. And the idea was, as you suggested, Devin, getting up right to that line. And it wasn’t so much being sneaky, but rather being obedient. You know, you want to think of military personnel all lined up in a very disciplined way where they’re all towing the line. They’re completely aligned with no deviation whatsoever.

So if you’re towing the line, the original sense was that you were conforming to whatever the standard was. So the traditional version, as you suggest, is T-O-E. You get your toe right to that line.

With the T-O-W?

Well, you’re…

No.

Yeah.

I mean, if you want to be strictly correct about it, you’re going to spell it T-O-E. But boy, that’s…

And it means staying within standard, not carry your own weight.

Yes, it has nothing to do with towing or pulling something with a rope. You’re measuring up to what the standard is, as you suggested.

Yeah, you’re behaving. You’re following the rules. So our anomaly was the correct one. That’s what happens when stuff is passed from ear to mouth and doesn’t show up on paper all that often. We interpret it like we wish, and we develop mental images that can be really wrong.

And it’s not helped by the fact that many of the early uses of this and the variants like tow the mark and tow the scratch were in connection with the British Navy, which had, of course, lots of ropes that had to be towed or lots of lines that had to be towed. So it can be confusing.

So it’s completely forgivable to think that it was TOW and no harm done.

Julie and Devin, thank you for calling.

Thank you, Julie.

Thank you, Devin.

Bye-bye.

Thank you.