Have vs take breakfast

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tarvos
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Re: Have vs take breakfast

Postby tarvos » Wed Nov 15, 2017 5:06 pm

Ani wrote:This thread is very confusing!

I eat breakfast and eat steak all the time. If I'm lucky I eat steak for breakfast.


Good. I am going back to my salads and pancakes.
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Re: Have vs take breakfast

Postby Serpent » Wed Nov 15, 2017 5:28 pm

But do you have them or do you eat them? :D

edit: this wasn't meant as a general you
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Re: Have vs take breakfast

Postby tarvos » Wed Nov 15, 2017 6:09 pm

I'll have them for dinner, and right now I am eating them.
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Re: Have vs take breakfast

Postby Ani » Wed Nov 15, 2017 6:22 pm

Serpent wrote:But do you have them or do you eat them? :D


It is rather impossible to eat what you don't have :)

I use both words all the time without restriction to the type of food being discussed.

"We've having tacos for dinner"
"We're eating pizza tonight"
"I don't know what to do for lunch... We could eat steak.. Or there is some leftover chicken"
"What do you wanna eat for breakfast?"
"Eat some cookies while they are still hot"

The only time I can say for sure I'd use have over eat is when ordering in a restaurant.
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Re: Have vs take breakfast

Postby qeadz » Wed Nov 15, 2017 7:27 pm

Well I'm no linguist, nor someone who has studied English outside of my schooling (which was a long time ago). All I do is speak it.

And all of these are not only normal sounding to me, but constructions I use:

eat steak
eat a steak
have steak
have a steak
eat breakfast
have breakfast
lets breakfast tomorrow

although "we breakfasted yesterday" is not something I would say and it sounds really strange. I would very likely say "we had breakfast yesterday".

go figure...
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Re: Have vs take breakfast

Postby DaveBee » Wed Nov 15, 2017 8:05 pm

qeadz wrote:
although "we breakfasted yesterday" is not something I would say and it sounds really strange. I would very likely say "we had breakfast yesterday".

go figure...
Would you say you "dined" yesterday, or "lunched" yesterday? Would those sound odd?
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Re: Have vs take breakfast

Postby qeadz » Wed Nov 15, 2017 8:59 pm

DaveBee wrote:Would you say you "dined" yesterday, or "lunched" yesterday? Would those sound odd?


Neither of those sound odd to me. I probably don't say it often, but I'm very sure I've 'lunched' with people. I dont even know if lunch can be a verb! But that doesnt stop me randomly turning nouns into verbs...

Perhaps I am an anomaly because I've lived in 3 different English speaking countries - roughly 1/3rd of my life so far in each.

There once was a time when 'trash' sounded really strange to say because I grew up not using or hearing it in everyday life. One would 'talk nonsense' rather than 'talk trash', one would take out the 'garbage' rather than the 'trash'. Similarly I would eat 'sweets' and suck 'suckers' rather than eat 'candy' and suck 'lollies'.

But now none of that is strange to me. Where once I would only hear it in movies, now I hear it in everyday life.
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Re: Have vs take breakfast

Postby tarvos » Wed Nov 15, 2017 9:52 pm

You can talk garbage though.
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Re: Have vs take breakfast

Postby qeadz » Thu Nov 16, 2017 1:11 am

tarvos wrote:You can talk garbage though.


I certainly do.
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Re: Have vs take breakfast

Postby Sylarv » Fri Nov 17, 2017 1:25 pm

tastyonions wrote:"Eat breakfast" is utterly typical, at least in all the American English to which I've been exposed.

My English is of the Australian variety so perhaps there's a difference in common usage there. The most natural phrase that immediately comes to mind for me is 'have breakfast', just like 'have lunch' and 'have dinner'. "Eat breakfast" though not wrong is phraseologically less common, or so it seems to me.
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