Take two

[guilhermebrittes]

I need to know what mean the expression "take two" used in today's (May 13) NYT editorial "Mr. Obama and Mr. Karzai, Take Two." Regards.

 

[Barb_D]

When you are filming a movie, each time you try to shoot a scene, it's a "take."

If you have to try it again, it's "take 2."

Sometimes you'll hear someone say "Wow, we got it in one take." (They got the final version the first time they tried.) Sometimes you might hear something like "It took 25 takes to get that scene right." (They had to run through it 25 times to get the final version.)

It has expanded beyond the movie/TV business to mean anything you have to try again to get right.

I don't know what the editorial was about, but it seems to mean these two people will try again to make something work between them.

EDIT: Oh, and welcome to the forums!

 

[acslater017]

Yes, it's a reference to film. Even an amateur filmmaker might tell his actors, "OK, take two!" to signify that they're going to try it one more time. Following "takes" would be "take three", "take four", etc.

 

[Ripley7700]

I agree with the above responses that this is a movie reference, related to film shooting. If you want to really emphasize/exaggerate how many times you have tried something, you might say "take one hundred" or "take two hundred and fifty." However, to make things more complicated, in the USA, "take five" can also mean to take a break or rest (in other words, "to take five minutes off from working"). But this expression should use the number "five" rather than "two." Use: "Let's take five and go to Starbuck's." I'm not very young, so this expression might be for older generations. ;-)