# a tour taking in several pubs



## raymondaliasapollyon

Hi,

The following is the definition of "pub crawl" in an Oxford dictionary. I'd like to know whether "taking" can be paraphrased as "which takes."

a tour *taking *in several pubs or bars, with one or more drinks at each.

I'd appreciate your help.


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## JulianStuart

Yes that is possible.


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## heypresto

Maybe 'a tour *that *takes in . . .'.


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## JulianStuart

heypresto said:


> Maybe 'a tour *that *takes in . . .'.


  
I could use either that or which here


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## raymondaliasapollyon

Does the "tour" in the definition refer to people or an activity?


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## JulianStuart

raymondaliasapollyon said:


> Does the "tour" in the definition refer to people or an activity?


Both 
A tour is a group of people doing an activity - you can't have one without the other.


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## kentix

Activity


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## sound shift

It just means that several pubs or bars are visited. It's not a _commercial_ activity.


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## kentix

The tour is the activity, the people are the participants.


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## raymondaliasapollyon

If "a tour" refers to an activity, then the activity cannot "take in" pubs or bars. Only people can.

But if "tour" refers to people, then it should be correct to say "The pub crawl is/are drinking beer." But it doesn't seem right.


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## sound shift

raymondaliasapollyon said:


> But if "tour" refers to people, then it should be correct to say "The pub crawl is/are drinking beer."


It's not correct, because tours can't drink.


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## kentix

It's a dictionary definition. It's necessarily brief. They assume you know _people_ participating in tours do things.


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## raymondaliasapollyon

Can tours understood as activities take in pubs? 
If not, I suspect "taking in" in the original cannot be paraphrased as "that takes in."


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## Welsh_Sion

It's not correct, because tours can't drink ...

___________

... only members of the tour can (and do) drink.


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## kentix

That's all fine, in my opinion. Taking or takes. Take in just means stops there or visits there.

a tour *that stops at* several pubs or bars

a tour* stopping at* several pubs or bars


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## raymondaliasapollyon

Only people, not activities, can  visit there.

I suspect the original sentence is like "John has experience *repairing *trucks," which cannot be paraphrased as "John has experience that repairs/repaired/has repaired trucks." The experience doesn't do the repairing.


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## JulianStuart

A "tour" cannot be separated from the concept of the people that are performing that activity.
Definitions from WRF
*tour *n an extended journey, usually *taken* for pleasure (  ), *visiting* places of interest along the route
*take in *to go to; visit  : _let's take in a movie tonight_


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## Welsh_Sion

*to take in* is listed in my Shorter Oxford as colloquial: "to include (a specified place) on one's itinerary."


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## raymondaliasapollyon

Welsh_Sion said:


> *to take in* is listed in my Shorter Oxford as colloquial: "to include (a specified place) on one's itinerary."



This definition of *take in* is compatible with an activity as the subject. Defining it as "go to" or "visit" isn't.


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## JulianStuart

raymondaliasapollyon said:


> This definition of *take in* is compatible with an activity as the subject. Defining it as "go to" or "visit" isn't.


You seem to be arguing a point that is not clear.  Are you questioning the dictionary definition, or the concept of an "activity" that people do. The concept of an activity requires people, they are inextricable linked.  No people = no activity. We took in a movie last night.


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## Hermione Golightly

It's a common expression.You could view it as the middle voice if you want, in which an object (the tour) is viewed as doing something without an active agent. 
'The plane flew low', for example.


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## raymondaliasapollyon

In the following sentence, can "visiting" be replaced by "that visited"? (I guess it's not okay to do so, but I'm not sure.)

Fred Jones went on a trip *visiting *friends up in Bangor , Maine.


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## Hermione Golightly

No. Fred was visiting friends. It was Fred's trip, 'visiting' describes  why he made the trip.


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## raymondaliasapollyon

Hermione Golightly said:


> No. Fred was visiting friends. It was Fred's trip, 'visiting' describes  why he made the trip.



Right. That's why I think "take in" in the first post doesn't mean "visit."


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## Hermione Golightly

I'm sorry, but it does mean 'visit'.


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## raymondaliasapollyon

Then the question now is why  "*visiting*" cannot be replaced by "that visited" in the second example but "*taking in*" can be replaced by "that visits" in the first example.


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## raymondaliasapollyon

His itinerary* took in* canals and the rivers Rhein, Doubs, Saône, and Rhöne down to the Mediterranean and along the French and Spanish coasts to Denia.  

Can "took in" be replaced by "visited"?


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## heypresto

No. _People _visit places, _itineraries _don't.


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## raymondaliasapollyon

Can trips and tours visit places?

The trip/tour *visited *canals and the rivers Rhein, Doubs, Saône, and Rhöne down to the Mediterranean and along the French and Spanish coasts to Denia.


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## london calling

No, trips and tours can't visit anything. Only living breathing beings can visit places.


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## heypresto

No. Again, _people _visit places.


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## raymondaliasapollyon

london calling said:


> No, trips and tours can't visit anything. Only living breathing beings can visit places.




If tours can't visit places, then "take in" in the following definition cannot mean "visit."

a tour that *takes in* several pubs or bars, with one or more drinks at each.

But "taking in" in the original version is ambiguous between "including" and "visiting"; the latter is as possible as "He has a job repairing cars," which does not mean the job does the repairing.


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## JulianStuart

raymondaliasapollyon said:


> If tours can't visit places, then "take in" in the following definition cannot mean "visit."
> 
> a tour that *takes in* several pubs or bars, with one or more drinks at each.


Nevertheless, it is correct English and grammatically correct 
The tour includes visits to various pubs.  Correct English and grammatically correct.  Now, can a tour act like that as if it were a person performing an activity of including visits?


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## raymondaliasapollyon

The Merriam-Webster online dictionary lists the following senses of "take in":

. . .
5*: *to have within its limits
The tour _takes in_ both museums.

6*: *to go to
Let's _take in_ a movie.

A priori, "take in" ambiguous between the two senses in the ing-version of the definition in post #1. But in the relative-clause version, only sense #5 of M-W is possible.

Sense #6 is possible in the ing-version just like "John has experience dealing with hearing-impaired customers." His experience doesn't deal with people; it is him that does that.


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## JulianStuart

raymondaliasapollyon said:


> The Merriam-Webster online dictionary lists the following senses of "take in":
> 
> . . .
> 5*: *to have within its limits
> The tour _takes in_ both museums.
> 
> 6*: *to go to
> Let's _take in_ a movie.
> 
> A priori, "take in" ambiguous between the two senses in the ing-version of the definition in post #1. But in the relative-clause version, only sense #5 of M-W is possible.
> 
> Sense #6 is possible in the ing-version just like "John has experience dealing with hearing-impaired customers." His experience doesn't deal with people; it is him that does that.


I expect you are learning to love the flexibility of English, right?


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## london calling

raymondaliasapollyon said:


> If tours can't visit places, then "take in" in the following definition cannot mean "visit."
> 
> a tour that *takes in* several pubs or bars, with one or more drinks at each.


That's exactly what it means. 😊


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## raymondaliasapollyon

london calling said:


> That's exactly what it means. 😊



What do you think it means?


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## Andygc

A tour visits (takes in) a pub in the same way that a car drives round a corner. In both cases the action is taken by a person, not by the tour itself or by the car itself. What could be simpler?


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## raymondaliasapollyon

Andygc said:


> A tour visits (takes in) a pub in the same way that a car drives round a corner. In both cases the action is taken by a person, not by the tour itself or by the car itself. What could be simpler?



If so, why did london calling say, "No, trips and tours can't visit anything. Only living breathing beings can visit places"?
You seem to be contradicting what he said.


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## Andygc

Ask her, not me. 

Doing is an active process. A tour is incapable of *doing* anything. A car is incapable of *doing* anything.

However, we can say the tour visits a pub or the car drives round the corner. They are much easier and simpler to say than the people taking part in the tour will visit a pub or the person behind the wheel of the car drives it round the corner. 

See also post 21.

Your objection seems based on a rigid logic which fails to recognise a very common English usage: we say that a thing performs an action when in reality the action is performed by a living agent.


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## Packard

I was only mildly surprised to see that there was a "pub crawl" entry in Wiki:  Pub crawl - Wikipedia

_
Many European cities have public pub crawls that serve as social gatherings for local expatriates and tourists.[citation needed]

In the UK, pub crawls are generally spontaneous nights out in which the participants arrange to meet somewhere and decide over drinks where to drink next.[disputed  – discuss] Structured routes with regular stops are rare._


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## london calling

raymondaliasapollyon said:


> What do you think it means?


It means 'visit'. We just don't use the word in your context. Please re-read all the previous posts. 😊


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## raymondaliasapollyon

london calling said:


> It means 'visit'. We just don't use the word in your context. Please re-read all the previous posts. 😊




Why did you say, "No, trips and tours can't visit anything. Only living breathing beings can visit places"?
That sounds as if "take in" does not mean "visit." A little more precision would be highly appreciated.


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## london calling

I'm sorry I expressed myself so badly.


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## Hermione Golightly

'Visiting' is close to 'taking in' in meaning and might well be used in more formal writing. But 'taking in' implies that there are other activities: those mentioned are the highlights. I think that I would prefer 'including' as a  sort of synonym. (There are very few true synonyms.)

We have to look at the meaning of the words, at the idea being expressed. If Fred goes to visit his parents I would not say 'he's gone on a trip taking in his parents'.
Fred is not a trip and his parents are not visited as if they were a tourist attraction.

Andy wrote


> Your objection seems based on a rigid logic which fails to recognise a very common English usage: we say that a thing performs an action when in reality the action is performed by a living agent.


I had already referred to t_he middle or third voice_ concept.

They say that attention to detail is a mark of genius and I applaud your remarkably good English. But you seem to persist in pitting us against limited dictionary definitions and your own inflexible notions of how things should be.


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## Packard

For me "taking in" means "encompassing" or "including".  Duration would not be a factor for me.

_Our tour took in seven European ports over ten days._


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## Andygc

Hermione Golightly said:


> I had already referred to t_he middle or third voice_ concept.


   Which is why I wrote


Andygc said:


> See also post 21.


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## Hermione Golightly

Yes, good!  I thought if it's repeated often enough, the message will get through.


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## kentix

See post 12.


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## raymondaliasapollyon

A few considerations have popped into my head:

1. Is "take in" in the sense of "go to; visit" (as in "take in a museum") a colloquial usage? If so, how likely is it that Oxford's editors defined "pub crawl" in colloquial language?

2. An Oxford dictionary for learners gives the following sense of "take in." The example sentences, the first of which demonstrates the usage in question, indicate that "take in," if understood as "visit," is a contextualized interpretation of the more general definition "to include or cover something." It echoes Hermione Golightly's comment, "I think that I would prefer 'including' as a sort of synonym."

[no passive] to include or cover something

The tour takes in six European capitals.
Her lecture took in all the recent developments in the subject.
3. I hasten to add that this dictionary's editors distinguish the above sense from the true "visit" sense, as the latter has its own sub-entry:

[no passive] to go to see or visit something such as a film

I generally take in a show when I'm in New York.

This practice is followed not only by the two Oxford dictionaries I quoted, but also by the Merriam-Webster online dictionary and the Collins online dictionary.

4. What is interesting about the sentence "Fred Jones went on a trip *visiting *friends up in Bangor , Maine" is its inability to be rewritten as "Fred Jones went on a trip *that visited *friends up in Bangor , Maine." The verb "visit" cannot take an object that refers to anything other than a place when the subject is "trip" (or "tour").  While this usage comes naturally to native speakers, it needs to be explicitly taught to learners.


5. I don't think "the trip visited several famous churches" exemplifies a middle verb, which on a relaxed interpretation given by P. H. Matthews, refers to an intransitive verb with a passive-like relation to its subject, e.g., "cuts" in "This stone cuts easily." Cf. "This stone can be cut easily."


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## Hermione Golightly

> I don't think "the trip visited several famous churches" exemplifies a middle verb, which on a relaxed interpretation given by P. H. Matthews, refers to an intransitive verb with a passive-like relation to its subject, e.g., "cuts" in "This stone cuts easily." Cf. "This stone can be cut easily.



I think we were talking about the participle 'taking in', not a finite verb, 'visit'.


> a tour *taking *in several pubs or bars, with one or more drinks at each.


The meaning of the use of a participle can vary so it has to be interpreted in a common sense way. That's what you teach your students.

A participle often replaces a clause with a finite verb. It's a very handy feature of English, especially in writing texts, that advanced students should know how to handle for themselves after intense studying of usage, and lots of practice.

A pub crawl is not in fact a trip 'taking in' pubs it is an outing for the specific purpose of visiting a number of pubs. So I question the dictionary definition that apparently started all this.
Dictionary definitions are notorious for being a a very poor basis for grammar. The examples are as often as not useless in practice even when understandable. That includes all the major dictionaries.

As already stated, Fred's trip is to visit his parents and using a trip 'taking in' his parents would be wrong. It is however a trip for the sole purpose of visiting his parents.
As I have said before a 'trip taking in' suggests to me that other activities are involved. The ones mentioned are highlights.  This would be perfectly clear in a  sentence such as "A watercolour painting trip to the Border Country, taking in monasteries and historic houses as well as the world-famous Alnwick castle".

You can reject the middle voice suggestion if you wish. To my surprise you have picked only one aspect of its use and not the appropriate ones in the context of this question. Your students need to be familiar with middle voice mode because it's increasingly common. I thought mentioning it might help with the pointless aspect of the discussion about trips not being people and thus not able to visit places.
Focus more on when the participle can justifiably be used instead of a finite clause. One such use is to replace a defining relative clause but there are others.

I'm stomping out of this discussion.


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## raymondaliasapollyon

Hermione Golightly said:


> I think we were talking about the participle 'taking in', not a finite verb, 'visit'.



Some participants claimed that "taking in" can be replaced by "that takes in" and "take in" means "visit." That led to the discussion of whether "tour" can visit a place.



Hermione Golightly said:


> The meaning of the use of a participle can vary so it has to be interpreted in a common sense way. That's what you teach your students.



The components of meaning that vary with the choice between participial and finite forms concern temporal properties. But that's not the present concern, which is with the selectional restrictions on "visit" and "tour."



Hermione Golightly said:


> A pub crawl is not in fact a trip 'taking in' pubs it is an outing for the specific purpose of visiting a number of pubs. So I question the dictionary definition that apparently started all this.
> Dictionary definitions are notorious for being a a very poor basis for grammar. The examples are as often as not useless in practice even when understandable. That includes all the major dictionaries.




Are you questioning the definition on the basis of the grammar or the phrasing "taking in"?
Grammatically speaking, "taking in" is considered a reduced clause serving the role of the relative clause "that takes in . . .." Is there anything wrong?

Lexically speaking, "take in" is compatible with "tour" as the subject, as the example sentences in the previous posts show. I agree that dictionaries can employ what we jocularly term definitionese in their explanations of words, but the examples are intended to help learners learn how to use a word, and thus should be useful. Are you really saying the example sentence "The tour takes in six European capitals" is problematic?




Hermione Golightly said:


> As already stated, Fred's trip is to visit his parents and using a trip 'taking in' his parents would be wrong. It is however a trip for the sole purpose of visiting his parents.
> As I have said before a 'trip taking in' suggests to me that other activities are involved. The ones mentioned are highlights.  This would be perfectly clear in a  sentence such as "A watercolour painting trip to the Border Country, taking in monasteries and historic houses as well as the world-famous Alnwick castle.



That's an explanation of why "take in" and "visit" are not interchangeable. I brought the Fred's example into the discussion to investigate what kind of object "visit" can take when the subject is "trip" or "tour."




Hermione Golightly said:


> You can reject the middle voice suggestion if you wish. To my surprise you have picked only one aspect of its use and not the appropriate ones in the context of this question. Your students need to be familiar with middle voice mode because it's increasingly common . . .



I mentioned the relaxed interpretation of the middle verb because that's the only one that relates to  Andygc's example "a car drives round a corner." The others are irrelevant.


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## kentix

A tour is an organized group activity. A "trip" could be a functional synonym for tour or it could simply be a reference to the simple act of traveling from one place to another. A tour is not a simple act of traveling from A to B. It's not a tour without a purpose of doing something along the way at various places, even if the only purpose is looking at things. 

So a tour and a trip are not always interchangeable. A trip around Europe is a tour, a trip to a city in Germany to see family is not.

When it's a tour, the point of its existence is for people participating in the tour to do things. You could almost think of it as an organization. It has people and activities associated with it, just like a business or a club.

A club can participate in activities. So can a tour. So can a business. But a tour can move and so visit or take in places and their associated activities before moving on to the next place. The agents of the tour are the participants. They do the individual activities. That's understood when you are talking about a tour or a club. The component of the organization (the tour or the club) that does the activity part is the members.

- a tour *taking *in several pubs or bars, with one or more drinks at each.

- an "organized group of people" that stops at several pubs or bars, in order for the members of the group to drink one or more drinks at each

- an "organized group of people" stopping at several pubs or bars, in order for the members of the group to drink one or more drinks at each


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## DonnyB

It's had a very thorough airing, but I think it's time to bring this particular pub crawl to an end.    Thanks to everyone for their contributions, which I hope Raymond has found enlightening. DonnyB - moderator.


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