[Grammar] It takes me an hour to get there.

[yuriya]

Hi, guys! I hope you are having a good time.
If not, why don't you grab a chair and join me in solving one of the mysteries of English grammar.

My grammar question today concerns the verb take, one of the jolly versatile magic words. I've always thought when take is used in the sense of need it usually takes the following structure:

It takes (someone) sometime to-infinitive
It takes (me) an hour to get there.

Pretty neat sentences they make, don't they? However, while I was listening to the radio today, I picked up this interesting line from a beautifully composed song, "Lucky" by Jason Mraz:
They don't know how long it takes waiting for a love like this.

Is it OK to use waiting instead of to wait in the above sentence? And if it is OK then how are they different in meaning? Thanks in advance!

 

[TheFuzzyTie]

Hi, guys! I hope you are having a good time.
If not, why don't you grab a chair and join me in solving one of the mysteries of English grammar.

My grammar question today concerns the verb take, one of the jolly versatile magic words. I've always thought when take is used in the sense of need it usually takes the following structure:

It takes (someone) sometime to-infinitive
It takes (me) an hour to get there.

Pretty neat sentences they make, don't they? However, while I was listening to the radio today, I picked up this interesting line from a beautifully composed song, "Lucky" by Jason Mraz:
They don't know how long it takes waiting for a love like this.

Is it OK to use waiting instead of to wait in the above sentence? And if it is OK then how are they different in meaning? Thanks in advance!

Chair grabbed--I'm set!

Your sentences seem to be check-plus work (completely correct); now on to your situation with "waiting."

With this, "to wait" would be too passive--It doesn't take a long time to physically start waiting, which would be what "They don't know how long it takes to wait for a love like this" would imply. Waiting, however, is the physical action of waiting, which is what Jason Mraz means here--That it takes a long time of waiting to find a love like that.

Man, with verbs like "wait" this does get awfully confusing, doesn't it?

Just a note of caution--In general, taking grammar rules from songs isn't the best of ideas, due to their, for a lack of a better word, puffy and artsy phrasing--They're not looking to be direct to the point (or always make much of a point, either!), they're, in general looking to get eventually to their point in the most artsy way possible.

As always, any questions? It's getting pretty late for me, so I may have misphrased/awkwardly phrased some things.

-TFT

 

[Raymott]

Hi, guys! I hope you are having a good time.
If not, why don't you grab a chair and join me in solving one of the mysteries of English grammar.

My grammar question today concerns the verb take, one of the jolly versatile magic words. I've always thought when take is used in the sense of need it usually takes the following structure:

It takes (someone) sometime to-infinitive
It takes (me) an hour to get there.

Pretty neat sentences they make, don't they? However, while I was listening to the radio today, I picked up this interesting line from a beautifully composed song, "Lucky" by Jason Mraz:
They don't know how long it takes waiting for a love like this.

Is it OK to use waiting instead of to wait in the above sentence? And if it is OK then how are they different in meaning? Thanks in advance!

You can use the gerund instead of the infinitive, but the latter usually sounds much better; and the former is often wrong.

"It takes me an hour getting there." sounds wrong, but:
"It takes me an hour just getting to work." sounds OK. So, the actual sentence makes a difference in usage.

When you reverse the sentence:
"Getting there takes an hour. To get there takes an hour", the former is almost always used.
"Waiting for love takes a long time" sounds better than "It takes a long time waiting for love." Either way, using this construction with 'wait' is strange, and best left for songs. It's strange because it takes no time at all to wait for love. It's finding love that takes a long time.

 

[yuriya]

Thanks TFT and Raymott! It seems a bit more complicated than I first expected. Not that your explanations are not good enough or anything but that they challenge me to consider things I've never realized there were.
I'm afraid it will take me some time to sort this out. Or should I say sorting this out takes some time? ;-)

 

[Raymott]

Thanks TFT and Raymott! It seems a bit more complicated than I first expected. Not that your explanations are good enough or anything but that they challenge me to consider things I've never realized there were.
I'm afraid it will take me some time to sort this out. Or should I say sorting this out takes some time? ;-)

Your question is probably meant rhetorically, but I'll answer anyway.
In my opinion, "... take me some time to sort this out" is better, as I implied in the first sentence of my previous post.

 

[yuriya]

Raymott, you mean while it is better to say sorting this out will take some time than to sort this out will take some time, you'd prefer to say it'll take some time to sort this out? Thanks again for your care and kindness, and have a good day!

 

[TheFuzzyTie]

Raymott, you mean while it is better to say sorting this out will take some time than to sort this out will take some time, you'd prefer to say it'll take some time to sort this out? Thanks again for your care and kindness, and have a good day!

Theoretically, he's correct. In all honesty, however, people will use "sorting this out will take some time" and"It'll take some time to sort this out" interchangeably. It is more graceful to say the latter than the former, though.

 

[Raymott]

Raymott, you mean while it is better to say sorting this out will take some time than to sort this out will take some time, you'd prefer to say it'll take some time to sort this out? Thanks again for your care and kindness, and have a good day!

No, I meant "take some time to sort it out" is better than "take some time sorting it out"
No doubt there are regional preferences.

 

[Tdol]

It could be that it's not meant as a single unit:
They don't know how long it takes - waiting for a love like this (=it in the first part)

 

[yuriya]

It could be that it's not meant as a single unit:
They don't know how long it takes - waiting for a love like this (=it in the first part)

Tdol, I hope you could elaborate on it a little. Unless I'm quite mistaken, I believe you have "dummy it" on your mind. Either way (gerund or infinitive) it, I believe, should be treated as the dummy.

And Raymott, I've been thinking about this over the weekend:

You can use the gerund instead of the infinitive, but the latter usually sounds much better; and the former is often wrong.

"It takes me an hour getting there." sounds wrong, but:
"It takes me an hour just getting to work." sounds OK. So, the actual sentence makes a difference in usage.

Can you provide some other sentences with gerund other than "getting to work" so that I can get general idea concerning take-constructions where dummy it refers back to gerund.
Thank you again. Have a good night, and to those living behind time, enjoy the last of the weekend!

 

[Raymott]

Can you provide some other sentences with gerund other than "getting to work" so that I can get general idea concerning take-constructions where dummy it refers back to gerund.
Thank you again. Have a good night, and to those living behind time, enjoy the last of the weekend!

Standing up for your rights takes courage. It takes courage to stand up for your rights.
Running the marathon takes stamina. It takes stamina to run the marathon.
Doing anything properly takes concentration. It takes concentration to do anything properly.

 

[Tdol]

In spoken English, we often say something and then give further clarification, etc, we don't necessarily reference things as neatly and as clearly as in written language, and in songs, where there are constraints imposed by the tune, language gets stretched and twisted.

 

[yuriya]

Standing up for your rights takes courage. It takes courage to stand up for your rights.
Running the marathon takes stamina. It takes stamina to run the marathon.
Doing anything properly takes concentration. It takes concentration to do anything properly.

Thanks Raymott. But then I was kind of hoping that you'd provide examples like it takes an hour just getting to work in which gerund goes at the end rather than used as a subject in the beginning.

In spoken English, we often say something and then give further clarification, etc, we don't necessarily reference things as neatly and as clearly as in written language, and in songs, where there are constraints imposed by the tune, language gets stretched and twisted.

I see what you are saying. Thanks, Tdol.

 

[ianhood]

Sentences like 'the men took a week putting up that wall' are quite common, Instead of 'take' you can use the verb 'to be', as in 'the men were three days repairing the pipeline'. Both these sentences are everyday colloquial English and would excite no comment whatever.

 

[yuriya]

Sentences like 'the men took a week putting up that wall' are quite common, Instead of 'take' you can use the verb 'to be', as in 'the men were three days repairing the pipeline'. Both these sentences are everyday colloquial English and would excite no comment whatever.

Thanks for joining in. However, I believe what you are referring to are participles rather than gerunds.

 

[Raymott]

Thanks Raymott. But then I was kind of hoping that you'd provide examples like it takes an hour just getting to work in which gerund goes at the end rather than used as a subject in the beginning.

Well, as I said, you can put a gerund at the end (in the middle):
It takes courage standing up for your rights.
It takes stamina running the marathon.
It takes concentration doing anything properly. (This one sounds a bit odd to me)

I don't think you there are any forms where you have to use a gerund at the end. You can certainly say:
It takes an hour just to get to work.
So, taking my examples from my previous post is what I'd recommend; but don't be surprised to see occasional variations.
If I think of any sentences where you should use a gerund in the middle, I'll let you know.