by Jennie Ruby
Is it toe the line, or tow the line? Butter would melt or butter wouldn’t melt? Long road to hoe or hard row to hoe?
These clichés are remarkable not just because they are so often repeated, but because they are so often repeated wrong. They are a part of colloquial speech, so we more often hear them than see them written. Then when we do decide to use them in writing, we don’t know how to spell them.
When someone is toeing the line, they are putting their foot on the prescribed mark. The origin of this saying is probably related to sports where the two contestants have to stand before or at a certain line before beginning. People who are toeing the party line are following a political party’s dictates. They expected her to toe the line means they expected her to follow the rules. There is no towing involved.
Butter wouldn’t melt is short for butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. It means the person is so cold that even something so easy to melt as butter would not melt in the person’s mouth. Why so many people say butter would melt, I cannot guess.
We have come a long way from our agrarian roots when we can say we are hoeing a road. A long row to hoe means you have been assigned a lot of work: it means literally a long row of, say, beans or corn, and you must use a hoe to dig out all the weeds. This kind of work is quite hard on the lower back (yes, your grammar maven has indeed done some hoeing in her life.) and thus is hard work, which is why it is not wrong to say someone has a hard, instead of long, row to hoe.
About the Author: Jennie Ruby is a veteran IconLogic trainer and author with titles such as "Essentials of Access 2000" and "Editing with MS Word 2003 and Adobe Acrobat 7" to her credit. Jennie specializes in electronic editing. At the American Psychological Association, she was manager of electronic publishing and manager of technical editing and journal production. Jennie has an M.A. from George Washington University and is a Certified Technical Trainer (Chauncey Group). She is a publishing professional with 20 years of experience in writing, editing and desktop publishing.
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