I don't take lightly to X

[Neal Whitman]

Seen in last Tuesday's _Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch_:

"I don't take lightly to threats," Jones said.
("S-W district not giving up on levy," Charlie Boss, Columbus Dispatch, Aug.
11, 2009, A5)

My diagnosis: an idiom blend involving "(not) take X lightly" and "(not)
take kindly to X".

CoCA has 94 hits for "take kindly to". (Not directly relevant, but
interesting: One positive polarity example, "Sam and Linda Christine of
Aiken, South Carolina, are on a back-door basis with everyone and take
kindly to absolute strangers happening by, especially during daylily
season.")

Only 1 CoCA hit for "take lightly to": "Conversely, comparing the two
situations also shows that a large and powerful nation, with vast resources
and unrivaled economic might, does not take lightly to losing in third-party
dispute settlement."

The ratio is a lot closer to the extent that you can trust raw Google hits:
28M for "take kindly to" vs. 10.5M for "take lightly to".

Apparently, some speakers have both "take kindly to" and "take lightly to":

"I do not take lightly to your threats. I do not take kindly to your attempt
to sway my actions against your Cult. "
http://www.atlanticcommunityboard.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=146321&sid=c7b11b6b5d19b0a7b08eaafb9c534452

For related discussion, see this message from Arnold Zwicky in response to
an example submitted by Wilson Gray:
http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0607B&L=ADS-L&P=R2516

Neal Whitman
Email: nwhitman at ameritech.net
Blog: http://literalminded.wordpress.com

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