I’ve used “tow the line” before (I think), but with the original meaning—what I imagine is someone pulling on a line of string demarking the allowed zone, so that they are still “in the zone” but are pushing the edges.
This should be seen as further evidence for the hypothesis that the phrase is associated to the meaning learned from context, and then people confabulate explanations for what the etymology is (if it’s transparent enough, they’ll get it right, otherwise they’ll do what I did).
I’ve used “tow the line” before (I think), but with the original meaning—what I imagine is someone pulling on a line of string demarking the allowed zone, so that they are still “in the zone” but are pushing the edges.
This should be seen as further evidence for the hypothesis that the phrase is associated to the meaning learned from context, and then people confabulate explanations for what the etymology is (if it’s transparent enough, they’ll get it right, otherwise they’ll do what I did).