step on (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Mullins, Bill AMRDEC]

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE


I don't see the following sense of "step on" in the OED:

_New York Times_ 13 Feb 1955 magazine sect p 17 col 2
"Benny has many tricks which he uses to insure perfect timing.  One of
them is his employment of "Hmmmm" and "Well" so that no member of the
cast steps on a laugh -- his or anyone else's."

_New Tops_ v19 n3 Mar 1979 p 21 col 1
"You must make sure that your entrances never step on a punch line or
break the train of the audience concentration during a trick."


_Washington Post_ 8 Jan 1980 p A13 col 1 [ProQuest]
"But he stepped on the joke, and later he fluffed the first part of a
question that coupled the subject of morality in politics with the issue
of gays and pornography."

_Wall Street Journal_ 17 Mar 1980 p 20 col 3 [ProQuest Hist Newspapers]
"You will have effectively 'stepped on the laugh.'"

_Los Angeles Times_ 4 Jul 1986 p OC_E22 [ProQuest]
"The other actors do a serviceable job with Abbot's sketchy characters
but often hurtle through their scenes as if worried someone will step on
the punch lines."

_Orange County Register_ 7 Dec 1989 p K01  [Newsbank]
"Nureyev's miscues even extend to spoiling other's gags; on Tuesday, his
mistiming stepped on the laugh one of the children generates by trying
to sneak a peek under Anna's voluminous hoop skirts. "


_American Salesman_ Jul 1992 v37 n7 p 9 [ProQuest]
"The natural instinct is to rush ahead to the next thing you're going to
say -- but this may cause you to "step on the laugh" and diffuse the
effect of the joke."


_Austin American [TX] Statesman_ 17 Jan 1993 p c8 [ProQuest]
"He rarely gave a speech when he didn't step on the applause line,
garble his syntax or get lost before making his point. "

_M-U-M_ Oct 1993 p 24 col 2
"Please don't step on the laughter at this point just to get to the next
phase."


_Lexington [KY] Herald-Leader_ 15 Oct 1999 p 17 [Newsbank]
" Pollard, 32, a Louisville native, has peppered his Kentucky-filmed
movie with many such wink-wink in-jokes that should play well in the
Bluegrass. (There's one that involves UK basketball, but to reveal it
here would step on the joke .) "



_Bangor [ME] Daily News_ 14 May 2002 p c1 [Newsbank]
" The four worked together like a well-oiled machine that never missed a
beat or stepped on a laugh line. "

And a related term:
_Abracadabra_ v 68 n 1762 3 Nov 1979 p. 474
"Please, though, don't copy one competitor . . . who had good lines but
spoke too fast and trod on the punch lines so that they were lost."


It usually has to do with an entertainer's or a speaker's termination of
an audience's response to something that has preceded, by coming back in
too early.  You can step on a laugh, a joke, applause, a standing
ovation, a punch line, etc.


Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

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