My fertility is taken amiss, my blocked colleagues take it for proof of lack of talent.
So too Pindar's intervention on behalf of Damophilus, a noble exile from Cyrene (Pythian ode 4), seems to have been taken amiss, and he was not invited to commemorate Arcesilas's triumph at Olympia in 460.
Some are comic set pieces, like "Disclaimers," a series of mock-official disavowals of problematic appetites and passions: about "The Rape of the Sabine Women," by Rubens, "the policy of the Museum is not to be taken amiss: / we oppose all forms of harassment".
No one seemed to take it amiss.
FOREIGN readers should not take it amiss when Bagehot says that, by international standards, public life in Britain is remarkably clean.
If one of us comes down after a few hours at the desk and doesn't feel up to conversation, the other won't take it amiss.
But I hope you won't take it amiss if the horse that you back should be shouldered aside by the toughest, most resilient chaser of my lifetime.
(He should not take it amiss if I also recommend the classic Charles Munch recording for RCA with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the tenor Léopold Simoneau from 1959, the first I knew).
I hope Scarlett Thomas and her publisher will not take it amiss if I evaluate her book in terms of genre, as to my mind this is to evaluate it as literature.
But, having eaten several servings of humble pie, surely no one will take it amiss if we allow ourselves one small brag.
(Also, I have taken it upon myself to mention whenever possible that the Jonestown cult committed suicide with Flavor Aid, not Kool-Aid; you're welcome, Kraft Foods, makers of Kool-Aid and other fine food-like products, and should you wish to compensate me for my work in clearing your fine product's name, I would not take it amiss. Small bills, nonconsecutive, the way I prefer all payments).
