"take care" as a phrase is normally used at the end of a conversation, right?
But in the below paragraph, how appropriate is the usage of "take care". (said to someone the night before his exam)
Bob... Good night. You take care. Good luck with the exams. Sleep tight. Pray well. It'll all be fine.
"You take care" is commonly used in AmE at the end of a visit. The speaker admonishes the departing visitor not to carelessly get hurt on the way home. But the admonition is not to be taken very seriously. It is light-hearted and has synonyms such as "Safe home."
I'm wondering how Bob is going to sleep with all those instructions to remember.Originally Posted by justlearning
It's just what we say.
Pray well?
Why not?
I have heard people say "We need to pray about this" or even an encouragement to "pray hard" but "pray well" doesn't work together very well - if one has an open heart, can one pray badly?
But more importantly, we discourage suggesting a person follow a religious practice that the speaker may follow but the listener may not.
I'm not a teacher, but I write for a living. Please don't ask me about 2nd conditionals, but I'm a safe bet for what reads well in (American) English.
I suppose, "I need this, God, and I need it now!" is praying badly. But I don't hold myself to be an expert on prayer; I could never get it to work.
How about "God bless you"? Isn't that too, in an indirect sense, ignorance of the other person's beliefs?
By the way, I don't think the term "prayer" carries religious connotations. Most religions do practice prayer but I think, prayer in itself, is a totally exclusive act. The word has got a million interpretations.
Last edited by beesting; 22-Dec-2013 at 19:19.
For me, "prayer" has only religious connotations.
Remember - if you don't use correct capitalisation, punctuation and spacing, anything you write will be incorrect.
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