Answer: "Take Offense To"
daegaer wants to know, “Is ‘to take offense to’ correct?”
As far as I can tell, it’s not wrong.
“Take offense,” meaning “to feel resentment or emotional pain,” is an idiomatic expression that’s listed in regular dictionaries, the American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms, and other usage guides without a preposition. This implies that it can be followed by more than one preposition and be considered correct-something backed up by a quick Google search, which reveals that “at” and “to” are used pretty much interchangeably.
Lisbon shrugged. “The suspect took offense at Jane’s insinuations of infidelity. He lost his cool and got caught in a lie.” She smiled. “Jane getting punched in the face was just a bonus.”
Rigsby made sure to stand farther away from Jane than usual. For some reason, he found that he took offense to getting tweaked on the nose.
“Take offense” can also be followed by other words, such as the adverb when.
Sometimes-like right now-Mal found it difficult not to take offense when people were shooting at him.
So what should you use? If you’re not using when, whether you’re likely to prefer at or to might depend on where you’re from. On the West Coast of the US, I’ve heard take offense to used a little more frequently than take offense at (though both sound acceptable to me). My sources in the UK and Australia, on the other hand, tell me that they’re more likely to say take offense at, but take offense to sounds fine, too.
You may also want to consider that since “take offense” is idiomatic, some readers might think it’s too colloquial for certain characters or narrators. In that case, you can just reword your sentence altogether. So instead of Lisbon’s suspect taking offense at Jane’s insinuations, he might be offended by them. Likewise, instead of Rigsby taking offense to getting tweaked on the nose, it might offend (or hurt) his pride.
Just use whatever makes the most sense to you-taking into account possible regional and character-voice variation-and chances are you won’t be wrong.
Sources:
American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms
"take offense" at Dictionary.com
As far as I can tell, it’s not wrong.
“Take offense,” meaning “to feel resentment or emotional pain,” is an idiomatic expression that’s listed in regular dictionaries, the American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms, and other usage guides without a preposition. This implies that it can be followed by more than one preposition and be considered correct-something backed up by a quick Google search, which reveals that “at” and “to” are used pretty much interchangeably.
Lisbon shrugged. “The suspect took offense at Jane’s insinuations of infidelity. He lost his cool and got caught in a lie.” She smiled. “Jane getting punched in the face was just a bonus.”
Rigsby made sure to stand farther away from Jane than usual. For some reason, he found that he took offense to getting tweaked on the nose.
“Take offense” can also be followed by other words, such as the adverb when.
Sometimes-like right now-Mal found it difficult not to take offense when people were shooting at him.
So what should you use? If you’re not using when, whether you’re likely to prefer at or to might depend on where you’re from. On the West Coast of the US, I’ve heard take offense to used a little more frequently than take offense at (though both sound acceptable to me). My sources in the UK and Australia, on the other hand, tell me that they’re more likely to say take offense at, but take offense to sounds fine, too.
You may also want to consider that since “take offense” is idiomatic, some readers might think it’s too colloquial for certain characters or narrators. In that case, you can just reword your sentence altogether. So instead of Lisbon’s suspect taking offense at Jane’s insinuations, he might be offended by them. Likewise, instead of Rigsby taking offense to getting tweaked on the nose, it might offend (or hurt) his pride.
Just use whatever makes the most sense to you-taking into account possible regional and character-voice variation-and chances are you won’t be wrong.
Sources:
American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms
"take offense" at Dictionary.com