My understanding of the etymology of “toe the line” is that it comes from the military—all the recuits in a group lining up , with their toes touching (but never over!) a line. Hence “I need you all to toe the line on this” means “do exactly this, with military precision”
I thought I just established that “toeing the line” is not referring to the same basic metaphor as “crossing a line”.
My understanding of the etymology of “toe the line” is that it comes from the military—all the recuits in a group lining up , with their toes touching (but never over!) a line. Hence “I need you all to toe the line on this” means “do exactly this, with military precision”
Yes. (Which is very different from “stay out of this one forbidden zone, while otherwise doing whatever you want.”)