Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Verb Phrase 153. The verb phrase today is take
on and we'll cover actually six meanings and six different uses of this verb
phrase today. It's a very common verb phrase. Maybe you know one or two of
these but you probably don't know them all. So let's, let's start. Here's the
first one number one. If someone takes on something, he or she accepts more burden,
more responsibility, more tasks etc. basically. So this is one of the most common
ways we say this. That somebody will take on more responsibility. They will take on
more duty. All right. So let's look at a couple of examples we have here. That new
job will require that you take on more responsibility. Yes. Sometimes you know, if
it's a promotion sometimes with promotions come more responsibility.
That's why sometimes they're willing to pay you more money too. Or number two
here. We say some volunteers took on the task of cleaning up the garbage from
that Beach. Yeah. A lot of times we'll say take on too when somebody accepts a duty
or responsibility or tasks that they really don't have to do. So like if
you're a volunteer you probably don't have to do it, but you decided to do it
anyway. So you took on this task. You took on this burden. Okay. Good. Let's look at
the second one here. If someone takes on another meaning you know, another person
or another organization, he or she begins to fight, argue or compete with someone.
So you could do it like it's a challenge in a way. According to the Biblical story
only a teenage boy named David was willing to take on Goliath. Yes. So remember
that's the old story from the Bible of David and Goliath and David was this
young teenage boy and everybody was too afraid to fight Goliath who is the big.
You know he was like a big giant, but David decided to step up and he took him
on. So he you know to challenge him basically.
Challenge in this case literally to a fight. Okay. Good. Let's continue. A second
example. The Boston Red Sox are scheduled to take on the Yankees this weekend. Yeah.
You might hear it reported on the news this way on the sports station. It just
means that you're willing ... you're going to compete with them. You're going to
challenge them in the game. Okay. Let's look at number three here. If a
person or company takes on more employees , workers, etc. they hire more
workers. So this is a simple one. But not everybody realizes that we use this use
of take on too. So let's look at you know, an example we have here that company has
a hiring freeze. Yeah. Sometimes they'll do this. It means for a period of time they
said they're not going to hire anybody at this time. They don't want to take on any
new employees because they anticipate a recession in the near future. So they're
anticipating a recession. They realize during the recession they might have to
layoff or downsize people. So you don't want to hire new ones before that
happens because you don't want to be training people then have to fire them
before they even finish their training or only after they recently been
trained. Okay. Good. Let's look at number four here. If a person or company borrows
more money, they take on more debt. Yeah we hear this all the time. If you take on
more debt you you're responsible for more debt. So it's kind of related to the
responsibility too, All right. Let's look at this. Ever since the 2008 financial
crisis many countries have been taking on more and more debt. All right. So
that's an example of that. Okay. Number five. If something takes on something
else it begins to obtain or get new new traits or characteristics of it. So
things that it didn't have before. Okay. Let's look at the first one here. Over
time many words start to take on a new meaning. Yes. So if you ever ... I do a lot of
word origins. Sometimes you find out how the words changed and why they end up
getting this new meaning that we use today. Even in our lifetime you know,
where you often hear it I mean one good example might be the word "gay. " If you
look at a lot of old books gay just usually meant happy. It didn't really
take on the meaning of like homosexual until ... oh I don't know probably you know
around the nineteen fifties, sixties sometime around that time. So it took on
a new meaning and actually we don't use it as much for the old meaning of happy
anymore. But there's a lot of classic writings. classic books, novels and
stuff where you do see this meaning was used. And you know, you still might have
to read that. Okay. Let's go on. Even though she is usually humorous you know,
kind of funny, her words took on a more serious tone. So they started to take on
some new characteristics here. So this is another way that we say take on. All lright
and the last one. We have here. Number six. If a vehicle or container, it gets loaded
it takes on more passengers or weight. Okay. Good.
So number six example. You overloaded that truck.
It is not built to take on that much weight. Or you might think of like the
Titanic remember they they were afraid to put too many passengers on the
beginning lifeboats. They were afraid that they would you know, they could take
on too many passengers or too much weight at the same time. Anyway, I hope
you got it. I hope it was informative. Thank you for your time. Bye-bye.