Meaning & Analysis
A speaker invites the hearer to interpret or receive the remark in whatever way they choose, declining to clarify intent or to manage the listener’s reaction.
Insights
Subjective Reception
Meaning lives in the listener: the proverb concedes that once words are uttered, the hearer’s perspective governs their sense, not the speaker’s design.
Limits of Control
Signals that the speaker cannot (or will not) control outcomes—interpretation, offense, or praise—yielding agency to the audience.
Defiant Indifference
Often a dare or shrug, it frames whatever follows as unvarnished, implying the speaker accepts backlash and will not soften the message.
Strategic Ambiguity
Keeps statements intentionally open, providing plausible deniability and leaving the burden of inference—and misreading—on the listener.
Stoic Acceptance
Models emotional restraint: judgments will come as they will, and one should remain untroubled by others’ variable readings.
Early Modern Usage
The paired options 'will/list/please' reflect Elizabethan idiom: 'list' meaning 'desire/choose.' Dramatic and satiric writers (Lyly, Greene, Jonson, Swift) use the formula to preface barbed truths or to disclaim responsibility for offense.
Drama’s Razor
Onstage, the phrase often precedes insult or blunt appraisal—an actor’s cue that a line may sting—thus telling the audience to brace for multiple, even hostile, readings.
Speech-Act Pragmatics
As a metapragmatic marker, it reframes the exchange: the speaker refuses further negotiation of meaning, shifting interpretive labor (and blame) to the hearer—classic face-work in politeness theory.
Cross-Linguistic Echo
Parallels abound (e.g., 'as you please,' Fr. 'comme vous voudrez'): cultures recognize that interpretation is unruly, and social formulas evolve to acknowledge or weaponize that fact.
Rhetorical Devices
Imperative
The command 'Take' asserts control over the frame even while ceding control of meaning, producing a paradox of authority and abdication.
Deictic Ellipsis
The vague pronoun 'it' withholds specifics, forcing the listener to supply context—heightening openness and potential misprision.
Irony
A supposed concession to the listener often licenses harsher speech, turning courtesy into a shield for candor or insult.
Variatio (Tricolon)
The triad 'will/list/please' cycles near-synonyms for rhythm and emphasis, broadening the invitation to interpret while giving the phrase aphoristic snap.
Transcription
Quotations
And this my flat and friendly deling if thou wilt not take as I meane, take as thou wilt.
And to bee short, take it as you please, I hould your goulde in scorne, and your selfe (unless you were more honest) in disdaine.
Take it as you list, you are in your owne clothes.
I'll venture upon him, let him take it as he will.
You are a prodigall absurd cocks-combe: Goe to . . Tak't as you will sir, I'll not flatter you.
A Kicksey Winsey And therefore let them take it as they will, I'll canuase them a little with my quill.
Take it as you please; but, I swear, you are a saucy Jack, to use such expressions.
Shakespeare Citations
Think what thou wilt, I am thy lover's grace.
I will frown as I pass by, and let them take it as they list.
Think what you will, we seize into our hands His plate, his goods, his money, and his lands.
If I do not, never trust me, take it how you will.
I cannot choose but tell him that I care not, And let him take't at worst.
If thou beest a devil, take't as thou list.
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
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