I think I May Take A Vomit
It is bad enough that the functionally illiterate lame-stream-media folk are helping to destroy our culture. Now, they seem to be leading the charge to destroy our language as well.
Every time I turn on the idiot box, I hear that NFL players are “taking a knee†during the playing of our anthem. What knee are they taking and where is it being taken to? Oh yes, it turns out that said players are actually “kneelingâ€, perhaps even “genuflectingâ€. Why not just say that?
Then, a few weeks ago I heard repeated reports that people close to Trump had “taken meetings†with various Russians. Where did they take these meeting to? Well, it turn out that they were actually “attending†meetings. Again, why not just say that?
Could it be that, during these “taken†meetings they were also having dialogue with other participants? No, they were simply “talking†to each other and/or “having discussionsâ€.
I have often heard that English is a complicated language… no doubt this is somewhat true since the language has picked up so many words and phrases from other languages over the years as it has emerged as the world’s preeminent language. So, why further complicate it by misusing words, using nouns for verbs and other such nonsense? Do the L-S-M folk think they are being cute or are they trying deliberately to make their crap harder to comprehend? Can you even imagine how much harder this is on people for whom English is not their first language?
To paraphrase a late master of the language, Winston Churchill, “with this, I am finding it hard to put upâ€.
Of all people, should not those who charge themselves with informing the rest of us not work hard to be correct and precise? Or is this just another bit of evidence that everything that was once great about us is headed to hell in a hand-basket.
Put another way, would we be impressed if surgeons, engineers and scientists deliberately pursued their respective crafts with such sloppiness?
Think about it because it actually does matter.
Troy L Robinson
Troy,
Most animals do not piss in their own bed.
These do!
Does that tell you anything?
‘Take’ is one of the commonest verbs in the English language, and in my travels, I have noticed distinctive regional differences in its use. Going into a bathroom to take a crap or take a piss, seems far odder than taking a knee. I usually go there to leave one… although I might take a seat in the process, and I do often go there to take a shower or take a bath. Most afternoons I take a walk or occasionally take a swim. Then I need to take a rest, or even take a nap.
One can take a bus; take a look; take a chance; take a leap; take a lover; or even [shudder] take a wife. I have become inured to these odd constructs, so to describe kneeling on only one knee as ‘taking a knee’ does not ‘trigger me,’ to use another recently minted and much abused phrase; but that is just my take… 😉
The colloquialism that does grate on my ears, is when people use ‘bring’ where I would say ‘take’ or ‘carry.’ If something needs to be transported, one can take it there or bring it here. One cannot properly say, “bring it over there.†Even the lawyerly expression ‘bring it,’ meaning to file charges or a lawsuit, never made any sense to me. ◄Dave►
The take/bring thing is a matter of frequent conversation between me and St. J9. She, being from the northeast, uses “bring” where I, as a south-westerner, would use “take”. I keep telling her to use the words based on her own situation… that is, one takes from and brings to. Seems simple enough but somehow it is not.
In your examples, “have” seems the more appropriate word yet that seems wrong as well. How about “perform”. As in, “I need to perform a piss”, or “I need to perform a nap”? But, “performing a knee” or “performing a meeting” just doesn’t get it. You want to know why? Because in each case, we have well understood English words that describe each act, as in “kneeling” or “attending a meeting”. Hence my objection to this newspeak.
Troy
Troy
Whoops. It seems I both agree.
I can relate. Having lived in a few British colonies, and subsequently spending many years cohabiting with British ladies, I know how hard it can be to try to teach a paramour how to speak proper English. 😉
The British often use ‘have’ or ‘go’ where Americans say ‘take.’ They have a bath or have a nap, and go for a walk or go for a swim. They even ‘have a go’ when a Yank might simply ‘try.’ ‘Perform’ seems a bit formal; but if you change it to ‘do,’ it becomes almost as flexible as ‘take.’ If one can do lunch; do hair; do the dishes; do drugs; do time; or do a woman, then one can surely do a piss; do a nap; do a meeting; or perhaps even do a knee. 😀 â—„Daveâ–º
Dave, Does it occur to you that in every example you offer, the word “take” adds nothing to the information conveyed. Indeed, if you omit the “take” or “take a”, in every case the meaning remains the same. Ergo, poor use of the language.
Troy
Not “everyâ€; but I take your point, Troy. I was only giving examples of rather common usage of the verb ‘take.’ In the context I used, removing it from ‘seat,’ would require employing the verb ‘sit’ instead. Just like ‘knee,’ ‘bath’ cannot serve alone as a verb either. At least in American English, one must add an (L) to knee, and an (E) to bath, to create verb forms of these nouns.
… I wouldn’t go quite that far. Yes, a great many nouns in the English language can also serve as verbs; but it does not follow that they always should. Unnecessarily terse speech tends to be dry, boring, and certainly uninspiring. Then, modifying their tense is often awkward. E.g. swim, swam, swum.
Since you have professed a lifelong disinterest in American football, it occurs to me that you may be unaware that the idiom, “take (or took) a knee†is a very common expression in the sport, which predates the current flap by decades. By the rules of the game, once a ball carrier’s knee touches the ground (E.g. tackled) the whistle is blown and the play is over. Therefore, when a player decides he wishes to end a play for whatever reason, without getting mashed, he “takes a knee†to signal the referees to blow the whistle. I suspect that this idiom evolved in the sport, because the act of ‘kneeling’ usually implies a sign of obeisance, which is the opposite of what Kaepernick was meaning to convey. ◄Dave►