[Idiom] Take the shine off his shoes

[Sanmayce]

Let's see what OED holds, here one of 'take' entry definitions:

58. With from, off (hence sometimes simply): To carry away, to remove; to extract; to deprive or rid a person or thing of (with various shades of connotation): = take away, 80a, take off, 85a, take out, 87a: see also take out of, 88.
to take off one's feet: to carry off one's feet by force, as a wind or wave; also fig. So to take off one's balance, etc.

85. ...

Many a sub-definition with many nuances but with one strong common thread ... simply to 'take off' - no trace of idioms only plain literal variants.

All-in-all the most common connotation of 'take * off *' is 'to deprive' being a literal one it serves as a figurative one as well.
All these variants (enlisted in previous posts) are not idiomatic at all, 'shining' and much less 'shoes' have no specific role, they are just a part of many words in place of asterisks.

And if you are interested in what my corpus of sentences yields for patterns *take*shine*off* and *took*shine*off* you make have a look at attached text files.
The pattern *take*shine*off* asks for all 'take','takes','taken' forms.
My advice, though, is to pay close attention to link which I gave in my first post, there by clicking on time periods (under the chart) you can explore this phrase in its context by clicking on book thumbnails. This is the real deal, anyone could guess/comment whatever he/she wants but this is no match for the former approach - proven (300 years ago) to be the best.

Allow me to share (kind of an advice) my view on this topic: Stick to your views more closely, stepping back (to yield) is a good thing only when is combined with inner strength.

Actually I think (after listening to the song) that you are more closely than everyone, Tdol is totally right but not for this song: he misses the lines (the full context) given by fivejedjon. I would call the guy from the song a 'lonewolf' and just then 'over-confident' and finally 'arrogant' or even 'egotist'.

Does this sentence:
"... She’s a former left-wing guerrilla fighter turned chief of staff ..."
sound familiar and similar to our 'sticking to his guns'?
Pursuing your ideals (in an uncompromising way) leads inevitably to collateral damages (affecting especially people who love you the most), this is all about sacrificing all (including yourself) in order to be one with your beliefs, and there egotism has its place for certain.
This is as cool as vanilla ICE: in one word drama.

Regards

 

[5jj]

Many a sub-definition with many nuances but with one strong common thread ... simply to 'take off' - no trace of idioms only plain literal variants.

All-in-all the most common connotation of 'take * off *' is 'to deprive' being a literal one it serves as a figurative one as well.
All these variants (enlisted in previous posts) are not idiomatic at all, 'shining' and much less 'shoes' have no specific role, they are just a part of many words in place of asterisks.[...]

The pattern *take*shine*off* asks for all 'take','takes','taken' forms.
My advice, though, is to pay close attention to link which I gave in my first post, there by clicking on time periods (under the chart) you can explore this phrase in its context by clicking on book thumbnails. This is the real deal, anyone could guess/comment whatever he/she wants but this is no match for the former approach - proven (300 years ago) to be the best.

Allow me to share (kind of an advice) my view on this topic: Stick to your views more closely, stepping back (to yield) is a good thing only when is combined with inner strength.

Pursuing your ideals (in an uncompromising way) leads inevitably to collateral damages (affecting especially people who love you the most), this is all about sacrificing all (including yourself) in order to be one with your beliefs, and there egotism has its place for certain.
This is as cool as vanilla ICE: in one word drama.

I am definitely getting old. I am afraid I just do not understand that,

 

[Tdol]

Many a sub-definition with many nuances but with one strong common thread ... simply to 'take off' - no trace of idioms only plain literal variants.

All-in-all the most common connotation of 'take * off *' is 'to deprive' being a literal one it serves as a figurative one as well.
All these variants (enlisted in previous posts) are not idiomatic at all, 'shining' and much less 'shoes' have no specific role, they are just a part of many words in place of asterisks.

But this isn't relevant- it's not the item under discussion. It's a false analogy to try to prove that take the shine off isn't idiomatic because most uses of take * off are not idiomatic. Of course there are cases where take the shine off is literal, but the existence of a literal form doesn't prove or disprove whether one particular usage is literal or idiomatic. It proves nothing except that we are capable of using it in a non-idiomatic way.

Also, the OED quotes serve as examples of meaning over time, so it is a relatively narrowly focused diachronic database- it's very wide in terms of number of lexical items, but it is not wide enough to use as the be-all and end-all of usage- that's not what it is intended to do. It has a heavy literary bent, for instance, and how much spoken language does it contain? It's a brilliant guide for meaning and examples of words in use, but it is not an all encompassing view of usage.

 

[Sanmayce]

Okay, you are the teacher I am the learner, from this point on allow me to disagree with your 'this isn't relevant' and 'false analogy' statements.

In my opinion it has a lot to do with our (Threadstarter in particular) discussion because I see he took a road which leads to some very arguable uderstanding, if you note he put a 'Idiom' tag as a prefix to his post.

I will admit my error when you prove the opposite, namely the existence of a single idiomatic usage of our pattern, I did my best (searching OED, my Gamera sentence corpus, Google books) to make cross-references.

As for your second paragraph I do agree fully, I use OED as ONE of several trusty sidekicks.

Regards

 

[5jj]

I don't see quite what you are getting at in your last post, Sanmayce.

I will admit my error when you prove the opposite, namely the existence of a single idiomatic usage of our pattern,

From COCA: "...the new Golden Globe awards, established by the foreign press, would take the shine off its evening."

It being impossible for an evening to have a shine, literally, the usage in this quotation appears to be metaphorical/idiomatic.

 

[Sanmayce]

NOT A TEACHER BUT EXPLORER

I don't see quite what you are getting at in your last post, Sanmayce.

Well, I am getting at clarifying the subject or more precisely to help lerish not to be baffled from this undefined phrase, namely to treat this phrase as an idiomatic one.

It being impossible for an evening to have a shine, literally, the usage in this quotation appears to be metaphorical/idiomatic.

That's what I have said several times:
"All-in-all the most common connotation of 'take * off *' is 'to deprive' being a literal one it serves as a figurative one as well."
What part you do not understand from the above statement?

Take into account that we (at least I) already have been here (your example). You are kind of pulling me back. I don't care how different they (figurative/metaphorical/idiomatic expressions) are - they have much in common but let us do not turn this discussion into a semantic babylonism, I stated my point very clearly already I feel no need to repeat myself.

Please read more carefully, anyway, I will explain more thoroughly if you ask - that is the normal way of communicating.

Let's see what HERITAGE holds:

"Phrasal Verbs:
A phrasal verb is an expression consisting of a verb and either an adverb or a preposition that together have a unitary meaning that cannot be deduced from the sum total of the meanings of its constituent parts.
...
Idioms:
An idiom is an expression consisting of two or more words having a meaning that cannot be deduced from the meanings of its constituent parts."
/ An excerpt from 'Guide to the Dictionary', The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition./

Part of 'take' entry:

Phrasal Verbs:

take off

1. To remove, as clothing: take one's coat off; take off one's galoshes.
2. To release: took the brake off.
3. To deduct as a discount: took 20 percent off.
4. To carry off or away.
5. Slang

a. To go off; leave: took off in a hurry.
b. To achieve wide use or popularity: a new movie that really took off.

6. To rise into the air or begin flight: The plane took off on time.
7. To discontinue: took off the commuter special.
8. To withhold service due, as from one's work: I'm taking off three days during May.

Idioms:
'take off' not present

Tdol, your unfriendly attitude forced me to step back.
I spent half an hour in exploring 'take off' (only in OED alone) not to mention other sources and you give me this ("... this isn't relevant- it's not the item under discussion. It's a false analogy ...") trash.
Instead of offending my reasoning/logic you had better ask me or say you do not understand as fivejedjon did.
You clearly disrespected my efforts to shed more light on this topic.

 

[5jj]

You clearly disrespected my efforts to shed more light on this topic.

I regret to say that not much light is shining in my direction.

 

[Tdol]

Where things are a matter of opinion, such as whether the character in the song is arrogant or not, are subjective and I raised no objection to being called wrong on that. However, your analysis by search could be represented as this:
take * off is predominantly non-idiomatic => take the shine off is non-idiomatic
This analogy is exactly what I called it; it doesn't matter if there are 999,999 non-idiomatic uses that are different from this one if this one is idiomatic. Secondly, why is there an assumption that the take * off pattern follows a single non-idiomatic rule?

Your own searches have many examples of take the shine being used in an idiomatic way- neither evenings (Fivejedjon) nor a Paganini performance are highly relective surfaces, so the usage is clearly not literal in these cases. Here's the full quote for Paganini:

Ole Bull he made his elbow quiver.
He played a shake and den a shiver
But when Dan Tucker touch his string
He'd make him shake like a locus' wing,

Loud de banjo talked away,
And beat Ole Bull from de Norway,
We'll take de shine from Paganini,
We're de boys from ole Virginny. .

Source


You say that the emphasis is on being better rather than diminishing, but it's actually from a jocular piece of boasting and hard to justify the claim, I feel.

The Dire Straits song is a question of semantic babylonism as you term it because it's a question about an individual usage. In the song, there's a road of life (figurative) and a road of death (real, where the accident takes place). I cannot see how the shoes refers to the accident- when a person dies and is a line in the news, is it really relevant whether they scuffed their shoes while being killed in an accident? Would the news item read 'A man was killed today and scuffed his shoes in a motorbike accident'? Knopfler is linking the two things thematically, but it's still figurative about the shoes.

I am sorry if you regard this as unfriendly, but you have repeatedly made some categorical claims in this thread based on asking a database the wrong questions IMO. You cannot literally take the shine off an evening when the evening is an event. Your excerpts from dictionaries do not disprove Fivejedjon's point. How do you literally take the shine off an evening?

If you ask a database the wrong question, you will get the wrong answer. I am not questioning you or the time you spent doing it, but I do believe that the database query is factually wrong as a means of proving what you are trying to show.

Also, there are two entries in the Cambridge Dictionary of Idioms with take + shine:
http://dictionaries.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=shine*1+0&dict=I
http://dictionaries.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=shine*2+0&dict=I
Are they wrong?

 

[5jj]

I spent half an hour in exploring 'take off' (only in OED alone) not to mention other sources and you give me this ("... this isn't relevant- it's not the item under discussion. It's a false analogy ...") trash. [...]
You clearly disrespected my efforts to shed more light on this topic.

In pointing out in a civilised manner the flaws he felt he saw in your argument, Tdol was hardly showing disrespect.

To dismiss his case as 'trash' is not reasonable argument. It is showing disrespect to the standards we strive to maintain in this forum.

 

[Tdol]

I don't see that it was disrespectful either and didn't mean it to be- I used a standard enough term:
False analogy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I suppose that quantificational fallacy could be said to describe the problem more accurately, but I expressed disagreement with reasoning that is not sound. I intended no offence, and am sorry you took it, but I am afraid your argument is not sustainable

 

[Sanmayce]

Tdol, that's talking.
I think your last post settles the differences in a proper-and-digestible way.
Now I see that I overreacted, excuse me.

We all have different styles of expressing ourselves, my is dynamic-and-aggressive but to be called disrespectful (as fivejedjon did) is truly untrue.

My 'figurative' and your 'idiomatic' describe one thing, but I still make my own differentiation between them: for me idiomatic is far more unique and differentiated while figurative still is adjacent to the literal meaning and is more 'loose', that is idiomatic and literal form the left-most and right-most boundaries while the figurative lies in-between i.e. it can be either first or second and here is the playfulness, to not know what exactly is meant.

Paganini example is good, I didn't read the whole context, yes you are closer, its beauty lies in the unspoken difference between the 'bravado'/(boasting as you say) and the real-achievement/(being better) halves which makes it so playful.

But I want to point the thing which caused this misunderstanding: it is not the semantics but the presumption of our statements. I am not highly but entirely accustomed to talk implicitly while you approached my statements as explicit ones, of course you are right about those 999,999 uses. In computer literature (which is my base and everyday context) there when the need is present then explicitly is stated whether the case requires IMPLICIT/EXPLICIT use.
My presumption as always (by default) is implicit. I never wanted to prove non-idiomatic usage of our pattern, but when you put me in explicit mode and started talking about false analogies that made me angry. I still think the good thing was you first to clarify the context before accusing me of anything.

Both definitions from dictionaries.cambridge.org are hardly wrong:

take a shine to sb informal
to like someone immediately
I think Andrew has taken a bit of a shine to our new member of staff.

take the shine off sth informal
if something that happens takes the shine off something pleasant, it spoils it or makes it less enjoyable
Having my purse stolen took the shine off my visit to Dublin.

I ran myself this new (to me) resource:
Results for take shine

take shine was found in the Cambridge International Dictionary of Idioms at the entries listed below.
...
take a shine to sb
take the shine off sth
...

Here I admit my error (but still regarding it as a semantic misunderstanding - because one of my trusty sources (Heritage Dictionary) stated the opposite to Cambridge International Dictionary of Idioms).

And finally in order to post this I was asked to agree EXPLICITLY with forum rules which I already IMPLICITLY did.

Regards