take care / take a look: verb + noun collocations with take

**ACME** · 28-12-2009, 08:19 PM

collocation

Collocations are words that habitually or typically occur together. There are verb + adverb collocations like wave frantically (not wave hecticly). There are adjective + noun collocations like regular exercise (not steady exercise). There are adverb + adjective collocations like completely or wholly satisfied (not utterly satisfied). And there are verb + noun or verb + object collocations like follow someone's example (not pursue someone's example).

take

Take is one of the most commonly used verbs in the English language whose basic meaning is to move something or somebody from one place to another, e.g:

I took him to the hospital because he was having difficulty breathing.

Take plenty of warm sweaters. It will be cold in Scotland.

There are a large number of take + noun collocations of which I include a selection of the most common below. Note how much of the original meaning of take is retained in these examples.

The first five are relatively easy to understand:

take a walk / a bus / a train

take a minute / a while / ten minutes

take exercise

take an interest in

take a photo

I'm not ready yet. Why don't you take a walk round the park?

It's essential for your health to take regular exercise.

I took 300 photographs when I was on holiday in Patagonia.

Since Sharapova won Wimbledon my son has taken an interest in tennis.

Aren't you finished yet? ~ No, it will take me a while, I'm afraid

The middle five are a bit more difficult so an explanation of the meaning is given after each example:

take steps / measures / action

take advice

take offence

take cover

take pity

If you take my advice, you'll stop seeing him.

We should take steps to ensure that no more money is lost on this venture.

There's no need to take offence. I was only joking!

They were firing over our heads, so we had to take cover.

She took pity on the stray dog and be became a family pet.

take steps, measures, etc: perform an action in order to achieve something

take advice: follow someone's guidance (on how best to achieve something)

take offence: feel upset because of something someone has said or done

take cover: hide of shelter from e.g bad weather or gunfire

take pity: show sympathy for someone because they are in a bad situation.

The final five are most difficult as they are idioms whose original meaning has been lost (but which is explained in the notes below):

take the mickey out of someone

take the axe to something

take a raincheck

take heart

take one's breath away

Stop taking the mickey. I'm fed up with being the butt of your jokes.

Can you manage Friday? ~ I'll have to take a raincheck on that, I'm afraid.

The way she played Lady Macbeth was so compelling it took my breath away.

Try to take heart from the fact that he's no longer in pain.

The company took the axe to senior management and abolished five posts.

take the mickey out of someone: to tease. Mickey represents Mickey Bliss, Cockney rhyming slang for piss. The expression then is a euphemism for take the piss.

take the axe to something: make drastic cuts, particularly in workforce

take a raincheck: politely decline an offer whilst implying that you may take it up later. A rainckeck was originally a voucher used in the US entitling one to see another baseball game if the original one was rained off.

take heart: take courage In former times, moral courage was supposed to come from the heart and physical courage from the stomach.

take one's breath away: be so surprised by something that it makes you hold your breath

Ones that we have not worked on include:

take a seat

take a bath / shower

take care

take a look

take milk / sugar in tea / coffee

take a break

take somebody's word for something

take your temperature

take a risk

take the credit

take responsibility

take the weight off ones feet

take a dim view of something

take ones hat off to someone

take a page out of someone's book

take a leak

take stock

that takes the biscuit!

Take Care
Sirhasan