(And yes, I should be slightly embarrassed being caught reading at Reason.com)
Politics aside, let’s concentrate on the idiom: toe the line. It is not, nor has it ever been, tow the line.
Per Wikipedia, it’s a little muddled where the phrase comes from, but it’s clear in several possible examples that it refers specifically to toes, not the act of towing.
Which is apt. When one toes the line, one is meeting expectations exactly. Towing implies pulling the line, pulling it to a different place. The line the idiom refers to is static, or at least static in the instance one is accused of not toeing it.
It’s a subtle, homophonic difference. But it brings us to the fascinating world of eggcorns, which I’ve seen more and more as people, unfamiliar with idioms, translate them from speech to text without first seeing them in print. Phonics helps them get the sounds on paper, but not the words.
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