with or without "take"

[carat]

Please be so kind to check my sentences for their correctness.

a. It seemed to take like an eternity before/until/till he came back.
b. It seemed like an eternity before/until/till he came back.

What about the word "take" here?

Is this word superfluous?

 

[Matthew Wai]

http://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/eternity?q=eternity
After what seemed like an eternity, he came back.

 

[bubbha]

a. It seemed to take like an eternity before/until/till he came back.
b. It seemed like an eternity before/until/till he came back.

In the first sentence, "like" should be removed, in my opinion.
In the second sentence, "like" can be removed.

 

[carat]

@Matthew Mai.
Thank you for your reply and the given internet link. Unfortunately, such Internet addresses don't help me much. As an answer, I need a clear no' or yes', because I do not want to analyse the text at the above-mentioned address and then possibly get the wrong answer.

 

[carat]

@bubbha
As far as the first sentence is concerned, I agree with you, but I am not as sure as you are. I think we should wait and see what other forum members have to say.

 

[Matthew Wai]

This forum member would also remove 'like' from the first sentence.

 

[GoesStation]

Each "like" a post receives indicates that a member agrees with it. Check Bubbha's post after a few hours and you will get a sense of how many members agree with it.

 

[Matthew Wai]

I guess the OP needs an explanation rather than a number of 'like'.

One may say 'look like', 'seem like', 'sound like', and 'behave like' but not 'take like'.
Does it make sense?

 

[tzfujimino]

The only case that I can think of where (a) might work is something like It seemed to take, you know, like, an eternity before ...

However, I agree with bubbha that the ''like" in the original (a) should be deleted.

 

[Matthew Wai]

I think 'quite an eternity' is possible, as people would say 'quite a long time'.