A Dictionary of Cont..

and I take everything that comes along. The expression
take sick is not used in Great Britain,
where it is considered an Americanism, but it is
acceptable spoken English in the United States.
See bring.
take a leaf out of someone’s book. As a term for
imitating someone or following his example, to
take a leaf out of his book is a clich6.
take by storm. As a term for overcoming resistance
rapidly, making a favorable impression in
an overwhelming manner, sweeping all hesitations
and doubts aside, to take by storm is hackneyed.
It is a metaphor based on a metaphor,
since it is drawn from military action which, in
turn, is named from the meteorological term.
take one’s life in one’s hands. To say of one who
is starting on a dangerous enterprise that he is
taking his life in his hands is to employ a clichC.
It is no less a clicht if used humorously.
take the bit in one’s teeth. As a term for obstinacy,
for a rash determination to ignore all guiding
control and proceed, usually with headlong violence,
on one’s own course, fo take the bit in
one’s teeth is worn out. The expression seems to
have been a proverb when Aeschylus employed
it in Prometheus Bound (about 470 B.C.) A
horse is guided by the pressure of the bit against
the sensitive edges of its mouth. If it gets the bit
in its teeth, as a young or intractable horse will
do before it is fully broken in, the rider or driver
no longer controls it and it usually runs away.
take the bread out of his mouth. As a way of
saying that someone or something has destroyed
a man’s livelihood, to say that it has taken the
bread out of his mouth is to employ a clichC.
take the bull by the horns. As a term for meeting
a dangerous situation with courage, or a
powerful person with resolution, especially when
the one in danger advances to meet the danger,
to tuke the bull by the horns is a clichC.
take the wind out of someone’s sails. To come
between an enemy’s vessel and the wind, so that
your ship was still maneuverable while his was
suddenly becalmed and helpless, was one of the
great objects of naval maneuvering in the days
of sailing vessels. Used figuratively, to mean to
nonplus someone, to abash him and by his sudden
discomfiture to have him at a disadvantage,
to rake the wind out of his sails is stale and a little
forced.
take the words out of one’s mouth. As an expression
for anticipating what someone else was
about to say, to take the words out of his mouth
or to take the words right out of his mouth or to
take the very words out of his mouth, etc., is
hackneyed.
take time by the forelock, as an expression for
seizing an opportunity while it is favorable, is a
clichC.
Several Greek fabulists represented opportunity
or (the favorable) time as a man with a
forelock which could be seized as he approached
but bald behind, so that once he had passed nothing
could be done. The figure of the old man
with an hourglass and scythe, by which cartoon-
497 tall
ists represent time today, usually has an elongated
forelock.
take to one’s heels, as a term for running away,
is hackneyed. Several other such expressions
(such as show a clean pair of heels) that have
to do with running away emphasize the heels,
though the running is done on the sole or ball of
the foot. Perhaps the heels are conspicuous to
the one following or the one from whom the
other runs away, the one who would be more
likely to employ such phrases, all of which are
good-humoredly contemptuous.
taken. See take.
talent. For talent in its meaning of a high order
of natural ability, see genius.
In movie, radio, and television circles talent
has the rather special group meaning of actors
and performers of all kinds as distinguished
from technicians or administrators (The rule of
no smoking on the set does not apply to talent
during the course of a show). There is no suggestion
whatever in the use of the word that the
talent are talented. There just has to be some
word to mark the distinction and talent is it.
In the term talent scout, one who makes a business
of searching out those possessed with talent
in order that they may be tested on the stage or
screen, there is something of the same meaning
of tu!ent but there is a shade more of expectation
that the talent will be talented. These terms are
both so thoroughly established that they must be
accepted as standard.
talisman; talesman. Talisman (plural talismans)
means a stone, ring, or other object, engraved
with figures or characters under certain superstitious
observances of the heavens, which is supposed
to possess occult powers, and is worn as an
amulet or charm (Books are not seldom talismans
and spells/ By which the magic art of
shrewder wits/ Holds an unthinking multitude
enthralled. By that dear tulisman, a mother’s
name).
Talesman (plural talesmen) means a person
summoned as one of the tales, persons chosen
from among the bystanders or those present in
court to serve on the jury when the original panel
has become deficient in number. It is a rare word,
certainly very little used in contemporary America.
talk (as a noun). See dialogue.
talking through one’s hat. As a term for talking
nonsense, usually of a pompous sort, with a suggestion
that the speaker knows that what he is
saying is nonsense, talking through one’s hat is a
clicht. Although the expression seems to have
originated in the early twentieth century, its origin
is uncertain.
tall; high; lofty. High is a general term, and denotes
either extension upward or position at a
considerable height. It also carries a suggestion
of bigness. A mountain is high and so is a wall
(though the latter may be so because it sounds
better to say high wall than tall wall). An airplane
is spotted high in the sky. If it is directly
above, especially above another plane, it is