Talk:take responsibility

RFD discussion: April–December 2020

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take responsibility

Sum of parts. Take + responsibility. Also definition is inaccurate - blame and fault are not essential. You can take responsibility by just deciding to be a responsible person in general. ---> Tooironic (talk) 04:55, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

I agree that the present definition is imperfect, but I would be inclined to keep this as potentially not entirely obvious from the parts, especially when you look at how many senses "take" has. For example, is it totally obvious from the parts that this is (normally) something that one does voluntarily? Noting also that we have many "take ~" compounds (see search results), some admittedly more clearly idiomatic than this one. Mihia (talk) 13:58, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

I see the term used in two related and sometimes overlapping but nevertheless clearly distinguishable senses, corresponding to different senses of take. One is to accept responsibility , which is a social act: it is not something you can do in secrecy but only in a social context. In this sense there is an explicit or implied conduct, circumstance, event or outcome for which the responsibility is taken (for example, the door having been left unlocked). Another is to resolve to act responsibly, to take control of one’s actions so as to ensure they do not cause unnecessary harm. This can be a purely internal act. In this sense there is an explicit or implied aim for which the responsibility is taken (for example, one‘s health). Both senses seem a sum of parts, but perhaps the polysemy is nevertheless a reason to keep the entry.  --Lambiam 15:40, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

Here is a good example of the second sense. For the first sense, just Google [Trump crisis].  --Lambiam 15:43, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

I'm not convinced that "take responsibility" can in itself mean "resolve to act responsibly". The Billie Eilish quote may be an error for something like "behave responsibly", or "take responsibility for their own actions" could be implied. In one place the full quote is given as "Please take responsibility for your endurance of this", which hardly makes sense to me. Mihia (talk) 17:55, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

The mention of "behave responsibly" reminds me of one of my favourite T-shirt messages: "When They Make 'Responsibly' Beer, I'll Drink Responsibly". Ha-ha! Mihia (talk) 23:38, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

• Delete as SoP. It can be added as a usage example to take. It's true that take has many senses, but does that mean we are going to have entries for phrases like take medicine, take one's temperature, and so on? — SGconlaw (talk) 10:56, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Keep. As already stated, the definition cannot easily be gleaned from the sum of parts, because of the 50+ senses "take" has. In addition, we already have entries like take a joke (sense 14), take a nap (sense 14?), take a picture (sense 41), take out of context (sense 3; otherwise, sense 1 of take out), take a seat (sense 30), and so on. At first blush, these may look like SOP. But these expressions and more are so common (and their meaning would not be readily apparent to a non-native speaker) that they feel like set phrases meriting their own entries. Imetsia (talk) 16:29, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

That is equally true of "take aspirin", "take the third exit", "take $5" or "take Calculus". Chuck Entz (talk)

There's probably no bright-line rule for determining whether a certain term is "set phrase enough" or "idiomatic enough" that it overrides its at-first-glance SOPness. Your examples pretty obviously aren't, and therefore everyone would agree that they shouldn't be included as entries. But the sheer number of meanings for "take" makes it difficult to sort out the meaning of "take responsibility". That, combined with (1) the fact that the locution seems subjectively "set-phrase enough" and (2) our (by no means binding) precedent of including many similar "take" compounds should be compelling enough to keep the entry. Until we have a solid rule to eliminate this penumbra, these determinations will be made ad hoc. Imetsia (talk) 18:12, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Abstain, it feels like a set phrase to me. In any case, fix the definition. PUC – 20:13, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

• Keep - Dentonius (my politics | talk) 14:19, 4 October 2020 (UTC)
• Keep – I don't think this is a sum of its parts. If it were SoP, then people wouldn't be complaining that the definition given is incorrect, because it would be obvious, right? I agree that the definition is incomplete. There's 'take responsibility for the bad past decision; you can blame me for the mess' (the sense given) but there's also 'You need to take responsibility for doing your homework; in the future, don't blame your parents if you didn't get your work done' (the sense mentioned by Tooironic and Lambian). The entry needs to be expanded. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:59, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

RFD kept — Dentonius 09:23, 16 December 2020 (UTC)