Exactly when, and why, did we stop "making" decisions and start "taking" decisions? And just how does one take a decision? And from whom does one take it?
Personally, I intend to remain, defiantly, a MAKER of decisions!
wordfreak in MA
taking decisions
Where have you heard this? Am I living in a cave?
It turns up in the newspapers all the time. It used to be confined to stories about government agencies, but it's starting to creep into other contexts. Oh, the horror!
wordfreak in MA
Many figureheads announce decisions without giving credit to the advisors from whom
critically important advice was taken. Such a decision is then, "taken".
I searched and found twenty sites that used the phrase "take decisions". As so often
happens, the purists are outnumbered and surrounded. Might makes right. Alas.
I won't give up my decision-MAKING without a fight!
wordfreak in MA
I'm sitting right beside you in that cave, Faldage. I am unfamiliar with the "taking a decision" usage.
I'm in the cave, too, but I can imagine appropriate applications, such as wwh has suggested. Someone on a panel makes a decision at least at proposal level, then the head of the panel takes that decision that the other panel maker made. Then we could get into forsaking a decision, shaking a decision, raking a decision, mudraking a decision, quaking a decision (now there's food for thought), hey, and waking a deicision!
Out of the cave with glee,
WW
I could be wrong (and if I am, I'm content in the belief that I'll soon be corrected) but from my experience, "take a decision" is the way every native speaker of English outside North America says it.
and if I am, I'm content in the belief that I'll soon be corrected
Phew! What a relief.
I've never said "take a decision" and I am (I believe) a native speaker of English who is outside of North America! 
..."take a decision" is the way every native speaker of English outside North America says it.
Not in this woods' neck. Very rarely it will be used in a political speech, but I've not heard it elsewhere.
Hi Hev who beat my by 10 minutes. Can't work out why I didn't see your post first but.
I think we should take a meeting about this...
we should take a meeting
Indeed. Shall we take lunch?
I suspect that, particularly for a committee member or chairman, to say "The committee has taken the decision to cancel the programme" makes it feel less of a personal responsibility than "The committee has made the decision...". The first statement implies that the committee has chosen one of several options presented to it but the second indicates that the idea was all theirs!
"take a decision" is the way every native speaker of English outside North America says it.Another nay-sayer here, T.
"They
took the view that.." perhaps, but "They
made the decision that.."
Although I think "They decided that..." would be a far more common construction.
A few more examples of (ab)use would be useful, JT (welcome, btw
). Can see how they sound.
I'm afraid I hear it a lot (on the radio, by individual speakers, on the news, in meetings - all over) - and I've always disliked it - it just sounds funny/odd/WRONG to me. Interesting to note that, in French, the term is prendre une decision (literally translated as - ta da - to take a decision). But I don't believe that English-speaking takers of decisions are hearkening back to the French.
Indeed. Shall we take lunch?
I'd rather take tea
I gotta take a crap and think about this for a while.
I agree with dxb - it is a phrase that I come across fairly frequently, but almost always in the context of corporate, rather than individual, decisions. And I think his analysis is good, too, as to the reason for its use.
Unfortunately, I do occasionally begin to hear it in individual situations, but.
Moi aussi. "Take" is corporate speak for "Make". And it's used in US English as much as in UK English; in fact I would suggest it's more common in US boardrooms than British. In Zild, it could be either/or, or both. All for the same decision.
Hey, Musick. You been in there a long time. You fall in?
re:You been in there a long time. You fall in?
round our house, extend stays in the throne room always raised the question "Everything come out all right, in the end?"
This doesn't play as well in text, but another family chestnut was heard if, one risked, and stood with their back to the fireplace, "Warming the whole of your body are you now?"