naughty step

English
WOTD – 20 November 2022

Etymology

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, sense 2 (“state of disgrace, exclusion from a group, or punishment”) is attested earlier than sense 1 (“place where a child is sent to sit as a punishment”),[1] though logically sense 2 follows from sense 1. The term was popularized by the professional nanny and author Jo Frost (born 1970) in the British television show Supernanny (first broadcast in 2004).[1]

Pronunciation

Noun

naughty step (plural naughty steps) (chiefly Britain)

  1. A place such as a particular step on a staircase or a stool, where a child is sent to sit in silence as a punishment.
    Coordinate term: naughty corner
    • 2007, Lucy Cavendish, “Tuesday”, in The Invisible Woman, Rearsby, Leicester: W. F. Howes, →ISBN, page 375:
      She is still talking to them at length about bringing up children without naughty steps.
    • 2008, Katie Price, “Harvey’s Progress”, in Jordan: Pushed to the Limit, London: Arrow, Random House, published 2009, →ISBN, page 90:
      I use the naughty step technique. Harvey understands that if he throws something he has to pick it up. say sorry and go and sit on the naughty step and count to thirty.
    • 2011, Natasha Joffe; Justine Roberts, “You Don’t Have to Have a Naughty Step but the Odd Star Chart Never Killed Anybody: Modern Disciplinary Systems and What to Do with Them”, in Why Did Nobody Tell Me?, paperback edition, London; New Delhi: Bloomsbury Publishing, published 2012, →ISBN, page 179:
      I know someone who uses and uses and uses the naughty step and threat of same, so much so that the phrase sets my teeth on edge. Her daughter's not even "naughty" – her mother just doesn't want her to behave like a child, just a mini adult.
    • 2011, “The Naughty Step”, in Stephen Jones, editor, Haunts: Reliquaries of the Dead, Berkeley, Calif.: Ulysses Press, →ISBN:
      When I am on the naughty step I can see into the family room. It used to be the kitchen but someone who lived here turned the other room into the kitchen and now the kitchen is the family room. […] I am on the naughty step a lot.
    • 2014, Jo Frost, “Good Behaviour SOS”, in Jo Frost’s Toddler Rules: Your 5-step Guide to Shaping Proper Behavior, New York, N.Y.: Ballantine Books Trade Paperbacks, →ISBN, page 229:
      Warn once, then follow through with the Naughty Step. […] And yes, you can discipline more than one child at once. I've had triplets on three Naughty Steps. If that's too hard for you, do it one at a time.
    • 2018, Tracey Jensen, “The Cultural Industry of Parent-blame”, in Parenting the Crisis: The Cultural Politics of Parent-blame, Bristol; Chicago, Ill.: Policy Press, →ISBN, page 73:
      She [Tanya Byron] implicitly referenced [Jo] Frost’s most infamous Supernanny technique, stating that she was ‘not a fan of naughty steps’ (see Mumsnet, 2007). Her co-clinician on Little Angels (BBC Three, 2004), Stephen Briers, repeated this in his book Superpowers for Parents (2008), promising that ‘you won’t find any naughty steps here’.
  2. (figuratively) A state of disgrace, exclusion from a group, or punishment as a result of a misdemeanour.

Translations

See also

References
  1. “naughty step, n.” under “naughty, adj. (and int.)”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, September 2022; “naughty step, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Further reading
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