taking the slaw (was Re: SUX)

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

On Sep 27, 2004, at 3:11 PM, Dennis R. Preston wrote:

> We just talked about semantically depleted verbs ('take' in "take a
> nap," "a shit," etc...), but aren't there also contextually full
> verbs, ones which do not require the object (rather than vice versa),
> allowing a speaker, given enough context, to put any concrete noun
> into the slot (no pun) - "he was taking the [insert noun of your
> choice]." This is surely similar to the childhood game of "between
> the sheets" and the like.

but "between the sheets" supplies some (slightly) racy content.  is the
verb "take" sufficient to suggest fellatio?  "take the lettuce"?  "take
the coffeepot"?  "take the amnesia"?  "take the mynah bird"?  "take the
semicolon"?

"take it" can work in context, but without, um, explicit information it
doesn't distinguish oral from anal (or possibly even manual) reception.

"take the carrot" might make some sense, but the google cites seem to
be about real carrots or about metaphorical carrots and sticks.  there
is the suggestive
-----
Gobi lowered his huge head and mouth down toward the little boy's hand
in order  to take the carrot, but the little boy let go of the carrot
before Gobi could ...
  www.all-animals.com/bcamels.html
-----
but this is about a camel and an actual root vegetable.

plenty of sex acts for "take the zucchini", but they all seem to
involve actual cucurbits.

arnold, who's taken about as much of this as he can