grammaticality - How to understand "It takes a little bit of getting used to the idea..."?


The following sentence is from a mathematical lecture note here:



It takes a little bit of getting used to the idea of a function that cannot actually be evaluated at any specific point, but with some practice you will find that it will not cause any significant conceptual difficulty.



Is there anything wrong with this sentence? I guess it is supposed to be "It takes a little bit of time for getting used to the idea...". Any idea for understanding the sentence?



Answer



To get used to something is the act of becoming accustomed or habituated to something. The last entry in an englishgrammarsecrets page about used to says: "We use 'to get used to doing' to talk about the process of something becoming normal for us."


The sentence you ask about says one must get used to some idea about a function, and quantifies how much of the "getting used to" activity is needed, as "a little bit". The grammar is ok, if slightly colloquial.


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