• Re: Tow/Toe the line

    From Adept@21:2/108 to Spectre on Sunday, November 22, 2020 13:33:13
    convince the low grade morons to tow the line

    I like the idea of someone "towing the line", meaning that they're grabbing
    the rope and pulling it along.

    It does seem to work, even though the phrase is normally "toe the line",
    which I assume is more a reference to starting lines or something.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Storm BBS (21:2/108)
  • From Spectre@21:3/101 to Adept on Monday, November 23, 2020 01:40:00
    I like the idea of someone "towing the line", meaning that they're

    It does seem to work, even though the phrase is normally "toe the
    line", which I assume is more a reference to starting lines or
    something.

    Ponder... I'm reasonably familiar with the expression, off hand I don't recall ever actually seeing it in print though. I'm surprised it rates a toe instead of a tow, which doesn't on the surface appear to make much sense to me.

    In the earliest known appearance of the phrase in print, The Army Regulator, 1738, an officer forming ranks of soldiers says: "Silence you dogs, toe the line...".

    That does tend to put a different spin on things though...

    Spec


    --- SuperBBS v1.17-3 (Eval)
    * Origin: (21:3/101)