Word Peeve: "stepping foot" versus "setting foot"

 Here's a recent one.

Sometime in the last 20 or 30 years, people started misusing the phrase "set foot" by subsituting "step foot" in its place.

"Step foot" seems to be a combination of "set foot" with the simple verb "step".

Usage examples of "set foot"

• "I'm never setting foot in that church again."
• "He was attacked before he could even set foot on French soil."

The phrase "set foot" implies a word like "my" or "his", or even just plain "a". It's the act of putting something, in this case a foot, in or on someplace.

• "I'm never setting (my) foot in that church again."
• "He was attacked before he could even set (a) (his) foot on French soil."
• "He was attacked before he could even set (his) foot on French soil."

Usage examples of "step"

• "I'm never stepping into that church again."
• "He was attacked before he could even step onto French soil."

"In" becomes "into" and "on" becomes "onto", but with those slight variations, "step" and "set foot" both work. "Set foot" sounds more sophisticated.

So what about "step foot"?

"Step foot" makes no logical sense. While, as I've shown, setting foot is about the same as putting a foot someplace, there is no similar construction for "step foot". Nobody says "Now, step your foot here and then step it there." People say "set your foot here", and they say "take a step here". But that's different. "Step your foot" sounds ignorant and hillbilly -- and so does the simpler "step foot".

Historical usage

As with other word peeves, I can't completely justify my position by referring to historical usage.

"Set foot" dates back to the 1600s.

"Step foot" dates back to the late 1800s. It was condemned by scholars back then then as a misuse of the original phrase, but it survived in popular usage. So even though it's still wrong, it has the weight of history behind it.

During the entire 20th Century, editors and English teachers were mostly successful in stamping out the incorrect usage, but as I pointed out, it has flourished again in the 21st Century. I think it's because the rising generation (or maybe two generations) did not receive the rigorous schooling in grammar and language that their parents and grandparents received.

Bottom line

The correct usage is "set foot" -- or, in the interest of simpler speech, "step". But don't use "step foot". It makes you sound uneducated.