walk in straight lines

Verb

walk in straight lines (third-person singular simple present walks in straight lines, present participle walking in straight lines, simple past and past participle walked in straight lines)

1. To adhere to a plan, protocol, or train of thought without any deviation or distraction; to stick to the straight and narrow.
   • "As I have mentioned some of the modern miracles of science and industry," he went on, "you have asked me how men ever managed to achieve them. This anecdote is my answer. . . . They walked in straight lines. . . . Each man had his 'pine tree' in the distance — his goal."1923, American Magazine - Volume 96, page 16
   • 'Our established models of the public sphere are deeply rooted in a commitment to rational argument,' notes Graham Murdock (1999: 14), 'But images do not walk in straight lines. They do not wait to take turns. They work by association, detonating a collision of connotations.2012, Jonathan Gray, Watching with The Simpsons: Television, Parody, and Intertextuality, →ISBN
2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see walk, straight, line.
   • When the principal installed typical no-excuses rules—mandates that students walk in straight lines between rooms or sit in silence if a teacher raises two fingers, for example—the atmosphere of the school apparently calmed and test scores went up.2015 March 17, Carly Berwick, “Zeroing out Zero Tolerance”, in The Atlantic