“I took it for granted.” (John Steinbeck, East of Eden)
I know this is an idiom. But it’s very strange that the preposition selected a -en word. I can’t imagine any other cases for this kind of combination. Is this just an exception, or can we use any other examples?
Answer
To take X for Y means to “assume that X is Y”; it may be used with both adjectival and nominal Ys:
I took him for an idiot.
Let us take him for sincere.
(This use of take is, by the way, relatively rare in conversation today; but its opposite, mis-take, is very common: I mistook him for sincere)
I took it for granted is an adjectival use of the past participle, equivalent to saying
I took it for something which has been granted.
Grant here originally had the sense of concede, as when we say
Granted, he is an idiot … meaning “I concede that he is an idiot.”
In the same way, FumbleFingers’ take it as given means take it as something which has been given—in logical discourse, a prior assumption, a term or proposition which is “given” to the argument from outside, at the beginning rather than deduced in the course of the argument.
Here are a few more examples of the take it for/as, with both adjectives and adjectival participles:
take it for certain that …
take it for indisputable that …
take it for proven that …
take it as decided that …
take it as probable that …
Attribution
Source : Link , Question Author : Listenever , Answer Author : StoneyB on hiatus
