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For the traditional toe the line imagery, it helps to imagine a very rebellious kid that you have firmly told to absolutely not cross some line under any circumstances.
Imagine the kid looking you dead in the eye and smirking, as they stretch out their big toe and put it all over the line while barely not crossing it.
This captures the aspect that you don't have to follow the spirit of the rules or believe in them in any way, you simply have to follow the letter of the instruction to be "toeing the line". There is an inherent malicious coloring to the term that is important, where people that only toe the line are bad people.
edit: It needs to imply that you're searching for ways to break a rule and get away with it on a technicality.
edit2: This got me curious enough to google the origin of the term, and it actually has a wikipedia article, amusingly. Apparently it has a military origin, and the article makes no mention of the negative connotations I mentioned. This makes me think my personal interpretation is actually incorrect, and I now wonder why I picked up on it. In the US, toeing the line does have a subtle negative connotation to it, and people that do it are looked down on somewhat.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toe_the_line
This is vastly different than my understanding of the phrase. I understand it to mean something similar to "fall in line". As in conform to some standard. I think it was supposed to have originated in the military where they would have a literal piece of tape in the ground at the foot of your bunk. When a drill sergeant or officer would come through you were expected to "toe the line". Meaning stand at attention with your toes exactly touching the line.
Exactly I don't think @carrolade@lemmy.world understands how the phrase is used colloquially.
Its most often heard in the form "toe the party line", as in political party. Members will have their own feelings and they can discuss them privately perhaps but in public they will sure as he'll toe the party line and repeat whatever the party policy is, without any dissent.
The same dynamic I was discussing appears in that case as well. The politician may not agree with the policy, and may be willing to violate it, but still toes the party line.
If someone was doing something somewhat shady, but still keeping within the bounds of some rule, you might say they are similarly toeing that line.
The big question to me has become, can you toe a line in a positive way?
Positive would probably be more commonly seen as an after effect I would think. "It's good that we toed the line here or we'd have had trouble."
I think it's because it's generally given as guidance beforehand (which doesn't necessitate positive or negative) and evaluated for positive or negative afterward.
Yes. People within the party think it's positive to "toe the party line". Anyone conforming to what you think is positive is "toeing the line" in a way you'd find positive.
Except that in my experience, even a supporter of said party, when talking about how a member of ours "just toes the line" is communicating a negative, not a positive. That's not a good, genuine guy we're proud of, it's someone to watch out for.
Colloquially too, the way I was raised, it's a bad thing, you did not want to be a line-toer. And I'm not referring to discussions of politics, but how it was used in day to day conversation. I've been accused of toeing lines, for instance, with the implication being that continuing may get me in trouble some day and I should be a little more careful.
Perhaps it's a regional thing.
I don't necessarily think it is regional. I think it's contextual. Within the party someone might be told "we need you to toe the line" if that person has been known to go rogue. It depends on what the line being toed is and the speakers thoughts on that line.
LOL. Its ok to just be wrong sometimes mate.
But it's also OK to seek more information about a topic you were incorrect about. We shouldn't chastise what seems to be genuine curiosity.
Yeah, I just made another edit to my original comment. lol
Eh I'm in the US and wouldn't say it's a negative connotation so much as firm or strict one. More neutral than positive or negative. That said...it's also slightly contextual though.
Regular context of guiding a kid or a team that's been in trouble for something("we better toe the line going forward"), it's more neutral. But you can use it slightly derisively for someone that's a stickler or brown noser, ("Don't do anything cheeky around Dan, he really toes the line and will go tattle to the manager.")
Anyways, just throwing my two cents to the wind.