# I was too taken in by his stunning eyes



## JungKim

The following is a paragraph taken from a book titled "Only In My Wildest Dreams":


> The scar protruded a bit more than it had in my dreams, and from a distance, and it should've repelled me. I tried to take note of the scar and to see the ugly in him, but I couldn't. *I was too taken in by his stunning eyes* that just seemed to pop out at me like fireworks.


 (Boldface mine.)
What does "I was too taken in by his stunning eyes" exactly mean here?


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## Kwistax

Here, "taken in" means "fascinated":

I was so fascinated by his eyes, that...


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## se16teddy

_fascinated_ or perhaps _charmed_,_ seduced_, maybe even _deceived_.


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## JungKim

In dictionaries, it's only "deceived" and not the other meanings.
But in context it may not mean "deceived".

In any case, I was wondering how come "too" is allowed here, considering that "too" can only modify an adjective.


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## sound shift

"Taken in" _is _functioning as an adjective here, so there's nothing wrong with placing "too" in front of it.


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## JungKim

sound shift said:


> "Taken in" _is _functioning as an adjective here, so there's nothing wrong with placing "too" in front of it.


I'm not sure how you determine whether it is functioning as an adjective...or not. Could you please elaborate on that?


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## se16teddy

In formal writing, we try to keep a clear dividing line beween adjectives, participles and finite verbs (and between nouns, verbs, adjectives and so on). In speech, poetry and literary writing, the borderline is fuzzy. I would avoid_ too taken in_ if I were on my best linguistic behaviour.


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## JungKim

se16teddy said:


> In formal writing, we try to keep a clear dividing line beween adjectives, participles and finite verbs (and between nouns, verbs, adjectives and so on). In speech, poetry and literary writing, the borderline is fuzzy. I would avoid_ too taken in_ if I were on my best linguistic behaviour.


So are you suggesting that the author was being sloppy in putting "too" there?

For whatever reasons it's not too hard to find the construction "too taken in by" in books and news articles. For example, here's another quote having the construction, this one from a non-fiction titled "Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes" written by Maria Konnikova.



> Attention is a limited resource. Paying attention to one thing necessarily comes at the expense of another. Letting your eyes get *too taken in by* all of the scientific equipment in the laboratory prevents you from noticing anything of significance about the man in that same room. We cannot allocate our attention to multiple things at once and expect it to function at the same level as it would were we to focus on just one activity.



Is the author here not being "on her best linguistic behavior"?


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## se16teddy

JungKim said:


> So are you suggesting that the author was being sloppy in putting "too" there?


No, this author is being poetic or literary. Look at the metaphor for example - the eyes popped out like fireworks. This is imprecise but not sloppy.



JungKim said:


> Is the author here not being "on her best linguistic behavior"?


This seems to be pseudoscientific text. The author is using an imprecise, poetic or literary form that is very suitable for unevidenced twaddle!

Incidentally, the OED does list_ taken_ (not _taken in_) as an adjective, and gives examples of it occurring before a noun
1659  Milton _Civil Power_ in _Works_   (1851) V. 331  If any man be offended at the conscientious liberty of another, it is a taken scandal not a given.
1742  E. Young _Complaint_ v. 987  Some..stumble, and let fall the taken prize.
1831  Scott _Count Robert_ iv, in _Tales of my Landlord_ 4th Ser. III. 88  Did not my heart throb in my bosom with all the agitation of a taken bird..?

The OED also gives examples of _too_ used with verbs:
1833  R. Browning _Pauline_ 937–8,  I have too trusted my own lawless wants, Too trusted my vain self.
1873  R. Browning _Red Cotton Night-Cap Country_ iii. 196  The causes,..Would too distract, too desperately foil Enquirer
_a_1529  J. Skelton _Magnyfycence_   (?1530) sig. Ciii,  He doth abuse, hym selfe to to.
1533  J. Heywood _Mery Play Iohan Iohan_ sig. A.iii,  By my soule I loue thee too too.

Needless to say, none of these examples sound like everyday English to me!


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## velisarius

I think in both examples I would have used "too taken up by" (too preoccupied by).


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## se16teddy

JungKim said:


> I'm not sure how you determine whether it is functioning as an adjective...or not. Could you please elaborate on that?


This is certainly not a simple matter, because many adjectives look like, and are derived from, participles, and the boundary is very fluid. But there are some tests that help.
- Adjectives go before the noun more than participles do. Beautiful Anna passed by.  Singing Anna passed by. 
- Adjectives can be qualified by adverbs like more, too: Anna felt more beautiful. Anna felt more singing.


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## JungKim

se16teddy said:


> ...
> No, this author is being poetic or literary. Look at the metaphor for example - the eyes popped out like fireworks. This is imprecise but not sloppy.
> ...
> This seems to be pseudoscientific text. The author is using an imprecise, poetic or literary form that is very suitable for unevidenced twaddle!



So are you saying that both the examples are not what you would normally hear or use in everyday use of English, if not ungrammatical?

How about this New York Times article example? (Soccer Moms Welcome Their Hockey-Loving Sisters to the Political Arena):


> ...
> She also said that defining women by the sports their children play -- be it soccer or hockey -- is not particularly useful.
> 
> “It’s kind of short for ‘I’m like you, I’m not elitist, I too drive my kids from place to place,’ ” she said. “So I think Michelle Obama can use it as much as Palin. *I think the population is too taken in by that.*
> ..."


Here, "she" is Donna Sturm, a jewelry designer in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, who was watching her 12-year-old daughter play at the Parade Grounds fields south of Prospect Park on Friday.

It seems that the boldfaced sentence is what this woman was quoted as saying in everyday English.


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## se16teddy

JungKim said:


> So I think Michelle Obama can use it as much as Palin. *I think the population is too taken in by that.*


If I had not had the benefit of this thread, I would not have been at all sure what "too taken in by that" means here. It seems that "taken-in" is widely used as an adjective.


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## JungKim

se16teddy said:


> If I had not had the benefit of this thread, I would not have been at all sure what "too taken in by that" means here. It seems that "taken-in" is widely used as an adjective.



Have you come to the conclusion that "taken in" in these examples are all an adjectival passive (as opposed to a verbal passive) just because it is accompanied by "too"?


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## Glenfarclas

With or without the "too," it seems clear to me that it is best interpreted as an adjective and not as the passive voice.


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## JungKim

Glenfarclas said:


> With or without the "too," it seems clear to me that it is best interpreted as an adjective and not as the passive voice.


Are you talking about all three examples shown in this thread?
Could you please show how you would interpret the meaning of "taken in" in each of the examples and how such interpretations would lead to the conclusion that they are adjectival passives and not verbal passives?


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## Glenfarclas

I was only talking about the example in your original post.

I'm really not sure what your problem is.  Other than the fact that "to take in" is a phrasal verb, this is no different at all from:

..My work tires me.
..I am tired by my work.
..I am *too tired* to play golf.

In other words, there is nothing remotely strange about using adverbs or other modifiers to modify past participles which could sometimes be used in passive verbal constructions but are actually being used as adjective.


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## JungKim

Glenfarclas said:


> I was only talking about the example in your original post.
> 
> I'm really not sure what your problem is.  Other than the fact that "to take in" is a phrasal verb, this is no different at all from:
> 
> ..My work tires me.
> ..I am tired by my work.
> ..I am *too tired* to play golf.
> 
> In other words, there is nothing remotely strange about using adverbs or other modifiers to modify past participles which could sometimes be used in passive verbal constructions but are actually being used as adjective.



What I think my problem is is that it all depends on the meaning and/or usage of the verb whether to treat the past participle of the verb as a verbal passive or an adjectival passive.

In your examples, I could easily change the verb "tire" into "kill" and show you that the third version with "too" doesn't work:

..My work kills me.
..I am killed by my work.
..I am *too killed* to play golf. 

So the question to me is whether the phrasal verb "take someone in", which normally has the meaning of "deceiving someone", can be freely modified by "too".


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## Glenfarclas

"Too killed" does not work because "killed" is not susceptible to comparison. Dead is dead.  And we almost never use "killed" as an adjective at all, outside of some technical contexts and certain types of expressions like "fresh killed meat must be stored..." or "killed and wounded soldiers are awarded medals...."

The answer to your second question is no, you cannot modify a verb (phrasal or otherwise) with "too."  But when the participle is being used as an adjective, then you can:  that is the case in "I was too taken by his stunning eyes."


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## JungKim

Glenfarclas said:


> The answer to your second question is no, you cannot modify a verb (phrasal or otherwise) with "too."  But when the participle is being used as an adjective, then you can:  that is the case in "I was too taken by his stunning eyes."



And the question still remains how to determine a past participle is being used as an adjective or a verb. You conclusively say that in the OP's example "taken in" is being used as an adjective. But according to se16teddy:


se16teddy said:


> _fascinated_ or perhaps _charmed_,_ seduced_, maybe even _deceived_.



So if "taken in" in the OP actually means "deceived", is it possible to view "taken in" as an adjective?
Is it possible to say "I was too deceived by his stunning eyes"?


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## EStjarn

JungKim said:


> And the question still remains how to determine a past participle is being used as an adjective or a verb.



You can determine whether a past participle is being used as an adjective or a verb by placing "too" in front of it. If the collocation makes sense, then it is used as an adjective, and if does not, then it is used as a verb.


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## JungKim

EStjarn said:


> You can determine whether a past participle is being used as an adjective or a verb by placing "too" in front of it. If the collocation makes sense, then it is used an adjective, and if does not, then it is used as a verb.



It's not an option for a non-native speaker to figure out if the collocation works, because if you can figure that out, you're a native speaker. 

That said, you might have a better understanding of what's troubling me if I tell you that I started this thread primarily because I'd come across this "too taken in by" construction more than once and I'd found "too" in that construction awkward, for whatever it's worth.


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## EStjarn

_I was fascinated by the secretary. I was completely fascinated by the secretary. I was too fascinated by the secretary.

I was taken in by the secretary. I was completely taken in by the secretary. I was too taken in by the secretary._

We can't read those sentences as though they were passive constructions. If we do, their meanings get twisted.

I would imagine grammarians having some special name for them, but they are not "true" passive constructions because what follows "by" is not an agent.

Compare: _I was fascinated by the curls of his hair. _We don't expect the curls to actually be able to "do" anything.


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## JungKim

EStjarn said:


> _...
> I was taken in by the secretary. I was completely taken in by the secretary. I was too taken in by the secretary._
> 
> We can't read those sentences as though they were passive constructions. If we do, their meanings get twisted.
> ...



What if the context is that I was deceived by the secretary when you say "I was taken in by the secretary"?

Would you still be able to say "I was too taken in by the secretary"?


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## EStjarn

No. In the case of "deceived" it doesn't work. And if that was your original understanding of "taken in", then you had good reasons for starting this thread.

Understanding "taken in" as "deceived" should not be one's default interpretation, as it were. To be taken in by something/someone is basically a positive feeling or experience, e.g., _I was taken in by the picturesque scenery. _It means I was _awed_ by the scenery. It has nothing to do with deception.


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## velisarius

I think _I was taken in by the picturesque scenery, _used to mean "I was awed", would be an unusual use of the phrase. "I was taken in by the scenery" (with no other context) would normally mean that I was deceived by the scenery: "I was taken in by the _trompe-l'oeil_ scenery." (In BE at least.)


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## JungKim

EStjarn said:


> Understanding "taken in" as "deceived" should not be one's default interpretation, as it were. To be taken in is basically a positive feeling or experience, e.g., _I was taken in by the picturesque scenery. _It means I was _awed_ by the scenery. It has nothing to do with deception.



The only way for a non-native speaker like myself to figure out what is the default interpretation of a phrasal verb such as "take someone in" is to consult a good dictionary. All the dictionaries that I've consulted basically show two meanings for "take someone in": one being "accommodate someone", which is neither here nor there in any of the above three examples, the other being "cheat, fool or deceive someone". (Take someone in in Oxford Dictionaries)

If you're right about the default meaning of "take someone in", then why is it that this definition of yours doesn't show up in any of the dictionaries that I've consulted? I'm genuinely confused.


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## Kirill V.

JungKim said:


> The only way for a non-native speaker like myself to figure out what is the default interpretation of a phrasal verb such as "take someone in" is to consult a good dictionary. All the dictionaries that I've consulted basically show two meanings for "take someone in": one being "accommodate someone", which is neither here nor there in any of the above three examples, the other being "cheat, fool or deceive someone". (Take someone in in Oxford Dictionaries)
> 
> If you're right about the default meaning of "take someone in", then why is it that this definition of yours doesn't show up in any of the dictionaries that I've consulted? I'm genuinely confused.


I am not native either, and I agree no dictionary is perfect. I should say, however, that Oxford is one of the best I've ever used. I also find Oxford Collocations Dictionary very useful. I don't have it at hand now, but if you do you may want to check it for collocations with the verb _to take_. I expect it to have _to be taken in_ in the sense discussed in this thread


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## EStjarn

JungKim said:


> If you're right about the default meaning of "take someone in", then why is it that this definition of yours doesn't show up in any of the dictionaries that I've consulted? I'm genuinely confused.



One reason is that we are talking about different idioms. The topic sentence is not an example of "take someone in" but "be taken in by someone/something". But you're right, it's not easy to find support for that it should be one's "default interpretation". I think I will have to take that back. In the topic sentence, however, it remains the only interpretation that makes sense since one wouldn't normally get "too deceived", as you note above.

It is also difficult to find a proper dictionary entry for the phrase, although there is no shortage of usage examples. For example, here's a Google search for "taken in by the film", which includes instances where the phrase refers to deception as well as fascination/awe.

I find that thesaurus.com. gives a varied lot of synonyms for "be taken in", the first one being "affected", which I think is a good one because it can go either way. One may be either negatively or positively affected by something.


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## velisarius

The first one is "affected" because they are given in alphabetical order. It shouldn't be assumed that "affected" is  a very common meaning for "taken in". 

I think that for a non-native speaker trying to get a sense of the uses of "taken in", the OP sentence is not typical.
Typical meanings are given in the WR Dictionary (scroll down for "take in"):
http://www.wordreference.com/definition/take in


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## EStjarn

I have revised my opinion about understanding the expression by default as something positive, but we must not overlook the fact that the OP says "was _too_ taken in by", and that it was this added "too" that made JungKim create the thread in the first place. This "too" makes the interpretation of the phrase as "deceived" unlikely.

Did you notice the results above for "taken in by the film"? If we go by the first ten it is pretty even between the two interpretations. Focusing on the more agreeable meaning, there are:

_5. In order to fully appreciate "The Apostle" it might help to have some experience with southern Pentecostal culture. I do, and was completely taken in by the film._ The Apostle Reviews & Ratings - IMDb

_6. The moment where she catches it is indeed magical and at the same time heart breaking, and it was here that I realised how taken in by the film and the characters I really was._ Filmstalker Review: Living in Oblivion

_7. I had spoken to the crowd beforehand, and I was sitting there, completely taken in by the film on the screen. It was very emotional and it was hard to maintain my composure. _Lesra's Latest - Lesra Martin

_9. To say that the crowd was completely taken in by the film would be an understatement. The movie I had watched on my computer and loved so much played out larger than life in the theater and was even more lovely than I had remembered. _“Mary of Nazareth” Film a Gift for the New Evangelization​Among the other six results there were some that I could not tell which of the two meanings was intended.

I agree we should not exaggerate the commonness of the above sense of the phrase, but there is no use in downplaying it either, especially not when it is modified by "too".


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## Forero

Acutally "too deceived" is not nonsensical. It can mean "deceived to too great a degree", but it does not fit our context.

A film "takes" a person "in" in a special way: it causes the person to feel as if they are part of the action.

And the fact is that _too_, with a totally different meaning, can modify a clause:

A: _I was completely taken in by the movie._
B: _I would suggest you weren't really._
A: _I was *too* taken in by it! You just don't know!_ (= "I was *so* taken in by it" = "Indeed I *was* taken in by it".)

But in the original context _too_ connects the sentence containing it to "couldn't" in the previous sentence, so that it means "I was too taken in by his stunning eyes ... to be able to (take note of the scar and see the ugly in him)."

Also, "his stunning eyes took me in" does make sense, with "took in" meaning "captivated"/"entranced"/"fascinated", but the presence of _too_, along with the part of the previous sentence that completes its meaning, prevents "was taken in" being seen simply as a passive voice in the usual sense. Nevertheless, "taken in" acts as a passive participle = "captivated"/"entranced"/"fascinated" and "by his stunning eyes" does express the agent, as it would in a passive voice construction.


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## Kirill V.

_To take_ is apparently a difficult verb to be described in a dictionary... It just can mean too many different things depending on context and preposition used with it

Somehow I did understand _I was too taken in by his stunning eyes_ as _I was extremely fascinated by his stunning eyes_ when I read the OP. However, I must admit that like JungKim I cannot find this sort of meaning in the WR dictionary. Or maybe I just overlooked it. If not, then it might be worth adding 

And since we've touched upon the issue of constructions with the verb _to take_, I also do not notice _to take *for*_ in the sense it is used, for example, in the Casino:
- _Downstairs he takes us for two million, and upstairs he has free towels_..etc (I forgot the rest)


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## velisarius

A search for "taken in by the action" shows even more results of the type found by EStjarn in relation to films.
https://www.google.gr/search?q="tak...-8&oe=utf-8&gws_rd=cr&ei=_O2xVbTQG8ioUaeOkbgI 
It could be paraphrased as "drawn up into the action".
I can't say I'd ever noticed such a usage until I read this thread, so I learned something.


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## EStjarn

Forero said:


> . . ."by his stunning eyes" does express the agent, as it would in a passive voice construction.



If the meaning of "taken in" in the topic sentence is adjectival (as suggested by sound shift in #5 and glenfarclas in #15, and which I agree with), what's the point with an agent?

I would concur that the phrase could express an agent with just a slight alteration of the sentence, e.g., _I was taken in by his stunning eyes_, where "taken in" meant "deceived".

But in the topic sentence, "taken in" means something like "fascinated", which is not (at least not here) an act performed "by his stunning eyes" but an emotional state of the subject "I".

Let's compare it with "happy". We don't worry about an agent for "happy". We may say, "I was happy about the reviews" or "I was happy to learn that she was alive". What follows "happy" are simply complements.

I don't see why it would be any different in the case of "fascinated" or "taken in" here. The fact that a complement is headed by the preposition "by" does not mean we have to understand it as indicating an agent.


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## Forero

EStjarn said:


> If the meaning of "taken in" in the topic sentence is adjectival (as suggested by sound shift in #5 and glenfarclas in #15, and which I agree with), what's the point with an agent?
> 
> I would concur that the phrase could express an agent with just a slight alteration of the sentence, e.g., _I was taken in by his stunning eyes_, where "taken in" meant "deceived".
> 
> But in the topic sentence, "taken in" means something like "fascinated", which is not (at least not here) an act performed "by his stunning eyes" but an emotional state of the subject "I".
> 
> Let's compare it with "happy". We don't worry about an agent for "happy". We may say, "I was happy about the reviews" or "I was happy to learn that she was alive". What follows "happy" are simply complements.
> 
> I don't see why it would be any different in the case of "fascinated" or "taken in" here. The fact that a complement is headed by the preposition "by" does not mean we have to understand it as indicating an agent.


We say something captivates us, something fascinates us, something deceives us, or something takes us in. I am calling that something an agent.

_I was taken in by his stunning eyes._ = _His stunning eyes took me in._ = _His stunning eyes captivated_ (or_ fascinated_ or _deceived_)_ me._ [I think "captivated" fits best, but "fascinated" certainly makes sense.]
_I was very taken in by his stunning eyes._ = _His stunning eyes took me in a lot_ (= _to a great degree_)_.
I was too taken in by his stunning eyes to see the ugly in him._ = _His stunning eyes took me in too much_ (= _to too great a degree_)_ for me to see the ugly in him._

This is not the sort of adjective that can go in front of the noun it modifies. Though a case might be made for calling me "a taken-in person", I think "a person taken in" is smoother. "Taken" is a participle, and it has its own complements and modifiers based on its "verb" nature (e.g. "in", "by his stunning eyes") as well as modifiers based on its "adjective" nature (e.g. "very", "too").


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## EStjarn

Forero said:


> We say something captivates us, something fascinates us, something deceives us, or something takes us in. I am calling that something an agent.


Here's from Wikipedia's entry for agent as used in linguistics (my bolding):


> In linguistics, a grammatical agent is a thematic relation that refers to the cause or initiator of an event. The agent is a semantic concept distinct from the subject of a sentence. While the subject is determined syntactically, primarily through word order, *the agent is determined through its relationship to the action expressed by the verb*.



The verb in the topic sentence is the actionless "was", not "was taken in". A support for that is the fact that one cannot make the topic sentence active and retain its meaning: _"His stunning eyes too took me in."_


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## JungKim

EStjarn said:


> The verb in the topic sentence is the actionless "was", not "was taken in". A support for that is the fact that one cannot make the topic sentence active and retain its meaning: _"His stunning eyes too took me in."_



In my earlier example "I am killed by my work", which would you think "the verb" is, "am" or "am killed"? I would say that it should be "kill", not "am" or "am killed". This is because "the action expressed by the verb" in my example is "kill".

Now in a verbal passive construction such as "I am killed by my work", it's just that the agent "my work" is marked by "by" and the verb is encapsulated in "be + past participle of the verb".

And the only reason "His stunning eyes too took me in." wouldn't work is that you got "too" to modify the verb "took". Without it, what's stopping "His stunning eyes took me in." from being equivalent to "I was taken in by his stunning eyes"?


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## Forero

EStjarn said:


> Here's from Wikipedia's entry for agent as used in linguistics (my bolding):
> 
> 
> The verb in the topic sentence is the actionless "was", not "was taken in". A support for that is the fact that one cannot make the topic sentence active and retain its meaning: _"His stunning eyes too took me in."_


My point is that the phrase "taken in by his stunning eyes" works as a whole whether we are saying "I was taken in by his stunning eyes" (meaning his stunning eyes took me in) or "I was too taken in by his stunning eyes to see the ugly in him" and that the relationship between "by his stunning eyes" and the participle "taken" is the same, and that "his stunning eyes" still has the same relationship to "take", regardless of how "taken" relates to "was". "Taken" remains a passive participle even when it is not part of "was taken".

As another example, if a dog bites a man, we can say "The man was bitten by the dog" or "The man bitten by the dog was my brother" without changing the relationship between "the dog" and the biting. The dog is still the agent of the biting, isn't it?

If we add an adverb such as "hard" to describe how the dog bit the man, we can say "The man was bitten hard by the dog" or "The man bitten hard by the dog was my brother" without changing the role of the dog in the biting.

Now there is nowhere to put "too" with the meaning in question in "The dog bit the man hard" or "The man was bitten hard by the dog", but we can say "The man was bitten too hard by the dog to be able to run away" and "The man bitten too hard by the dog to be able to run away was my brother", and the dog remains the agent of the biting, doesn't it?

And as I see it, even if we say "The man too hard bitten by the dog" instead of "The man bitten too hard by the dog", the dog is still the agent of the biting.

In other words, each of the phrases "bitten hard by the dog", "hard bitten by the dog", and "taken in by his stunning eyes" can modify a noun without harming the relationship between agent and action.


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## EStjarn

JungKim said:


> In my earlier example "I am killed by my work", which would you think "the verb" is, "am" or "am killed"?



Reading the sentence literally (which is the only way I can read it), I'd say that "am killed" is the verb (or verb phrase) by which the agent is determined. Or we could say that it is "kill", as you do. It doesn't matter.

The main thing is that we agree that it is not "am" (or "be"). And we agree on that because we understand "am killed" the same way. It isn't used to express an emotional state (not in my book, that is). I couldn't say _I am killed_ and think that would mean anything to anyone. But the case is different with, say, "surprised": _I am surprised.
_
(Note that "My work is killing me" cannot be paraphrased as "I am killed by my work" other than in theory. In practice it would not be idiomatic.)


JungKim said:


> Without [the "too"], what's stopping "His stunning eyes took me in." from being equivalent to "I was taken in by his stunning eyes"?



Nothing is stopping it. But I would not understand _His stunning eyes took me in_ as _His stunning eyes fascinated me_. I've never come across that use. I managed to find a few instances of it, but I cannot vouch for that they are idiomatic, e.g.,

_Almost unconsciously the film took him in. He was not so much interested in the plot as to confirming his suspicions as to what was going on. __Nails_, D. M. Sampson​
Compare with the far more common use:

_As their fingers brushed, her eyes took him in with hungry sadness._ _Small Kingdoms_, Anastasia Hobbet

_She tapped him with her fan as her eyes took him in._ _Escape to Paradise Trilogy_, MaryLu Tindall

_Her eyes took him in piece by piece. The wide chest she'd seen before. The flat stomach with the scars riding just inside his hipbone. __The Man behind the Badge_, Vickie Taylor​
In these latter quotes "took in" describes an act or a process that somewhat resembles devouring. This is far from how "taken in" in the topic sentence should be understood.


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## Forero

EStjarn said:


> Nothing is stopping it. But I would not understand _His stunning eyes took me in_ as _His stunning eyes fascinated me_. I've never come across that use. I managed to find a few instances of it, but I cannot vouch for that they are idiomatic, e.g.,
> 
> _Almost unconsciously the film took him in. He was not so much interested in the plot as to confirming his suspicions as to what was going on. __Nails_, D. M. Sampson​
> Compare with the far more common use:
> 
> _As their fingers brushed, her eyes took him in with hungry sadness._ _Small Kingdoms_, Anastasia Hobbet
> 
> _She tapped him with her fan as her eyes took him in._ _Escape to Paradise Trilogy_, MaryLu Tindall
> 
> _Her eyes took him in piece by piece. The wide chest she'd seen before. The flat stomach with the scars riding just inside his hipbone. __The Man behind the Badge_, Vickie Taylor​
> In these latter quotes "took in" describes an act or a process that somewhat resembles devouring. This is far from how "taken in" in the topic sentence should be understood.


Yes, these are all idiomatic.

We have already talked about the sense in which a film takes or draws a person in, which is almost literal.

Our problem seems to be that the same literal meaning (to draw a person in) spawns lots of figurative ideas limited only by our imaginations (examine, study, look up and down, size up, devour, deceive, captivate, seduce, charm, entrance, fascinate, impress, distract), and when a person's eyes do it, we can see the "action" from the point of view of either party involved. In fact, two people may be simultaneously taken in by each other's eyes either as a process or all at once.

"Senses" in which the person does something with their eyes do not seem to work as well in the participle form "taken in" as those in which their eyes "just happen" to do something.

But all of the ideas of the latter type fit our original sentence, and no one can say the author's intent was to exclude any of them. It seems that all of these are synonyms of _taken in_ in the original sentence: _captivated_, _seduced_, _charmed_, _entranced_, _fascinated_, _impressed_, _distracted_, etc.

The use of _too_ in the original sentence implies the idea of a graduated "action", an "action" with degrees or gradations, such as a process. This is why I chose "captivated" as a synonym instead of "captured", and why I think "deceived" does not fit as well as the others.


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