Language: en
Meaning: (idiomatic)Tolecture,berate,admonish, or hold somebodyaccountablefor his or her actions.1909,John Kendrick Bangs, chapter 3, inThe Autobiography of Methuselah:[W]hen any of his descendants chose totake him to taskfor the crudeness of his manners he was accustomed to look them coldly over and retort that things had come to a pretty pass when comparatively new people ventured to instruct the oldest of the old settlers as to what was or was not good form.1948January and February, “Memoirs of Archibald Sturrock”, inRailway Magazine, page47:A dozen similar, but smaller footwarmers were made at Doncaster, without official sanction, and placed in the coaches of a train conveying some of the directors to London. Sturrock wastaken to taskby the chairman for having incurred this unauthorised expenditure, but before he left the meeting, the directors had ordered 200 footwarmers for public use.1963July, “News and Comment: Dr. Beeching's overstatement”, inModern Railways, page 3:In a closely reasoned article inThe Guardian, Mr. D. L. Munby, Oxford University's Reader in the Economics and Organisation of Transport, hastakenDr. Beechingto taskfor overstating his case for withdrawing stopping train services as money-losers.
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