Every time I use the word “bring” to mean “take”, and “take” to mean “bring”, my dear sweet mother corrects me like she’s a third-grade straight-A student and it’s making me kinda nuts.
Is there a mnemonic I can use to stop making this mistake?
Insofar as the two terms overlap, I think the difference is one of direction of viewpoint. If I’m coming to your house, I bring cake. If it’s cold outside, I’ll bring a warm coat with me. If I’m standing on the doorstep with my cake, you might invite me to bring it inside.
If I’m about to depart for the above visit, my wife might remind me to take the cake, to take a warm coat. If she’s standing behind me on your doorstep after you have invited me in, she might say ‘go on - take the cake in’
But colloquially, I think the line between these two terms is often pretty blurry depending on dialect. You might not even be using the words wrongly.
In my dialect at least (UK English) - I take things with me if I am going. I bring things with me if I am coming - and the blurry line here is for example if I am planning a picnic tomorrow with my wife,
‘Shall we take the folding chairs?’ or ‘Shall we bring the folding chairs?’ - either form is valid (because from our collective point of view, we are both going, but will both expect to be there at the arriving end, I think)
Okay, I dig. But is there an easy way to remember the difference? Mnemonics are my preferred form of memory aid.
I don’t necessarily disagree with you, but to this Brit, all the bolded words in your post are almost interchangeable, I don’t think I would say any were right or wrong.
It would help if the OP could provide some examples.
I doubt that the OP will find any handy aids to help him. In many situations the two words are interchangeable and the speaker should use whichever seems right to them.
My take on it is that the OP could point out to his pedantic mother that it’s a bit late to be correcting him now - she should have done it when he was a child.
We came up with something that might work, however esoteric.
Bradley Whitford, Tim Tebow.
Bring with, take to.
Now if I can just find a way to be arsed to care. Maybe she’ll stop correcting me. I read the last post to her verbatim, and added, “I’m a writer; I know more words than you.”
ummmm…how 'bout this:
"My mother’s worry about take and bring
Is such a petty, silly thing
So whenever at her house you tarry,
Speaketh thou only the word “carry”.
Take and bring are the same damn thing. Just remember that and you’ll never go wrong.
Love it.
I don’t disagree. There is significant overlap and even if I heard someone use bring in a context where it would seem more natural for me to say take, I would just chalk it up to dialect.
Compliance might only encourage her to start correcting something else. Not that I would necessarily advocate outright defiance, but unsolicited correction of an adult human is sort of rude.
I’d suggest just brushing off the correction and resuming ‘now where was I before your interruption, ah yes…’
I love my mother very, very much, I really do. In the absence of a significant other, she’s the most important person in my life, and a goodly part of the reason I took the job at 7-Eleven was to make sure she’d never want for medication again.
But goddamn, sometimes she is annoying, that’s all.
How about Born With Ten Toes?
mmm
I would have said that, at least in cases where only one of the two words is appropriate, take is used to emphasize where something is being moved from, while bring is used to emphasize where something is being moved to.
For example, you might ask someone to take out the trash (if you said “bring out the trash,” I’d think you were already outside and wanted the trash brought to you); but you’d ask them to bring you a shrubbery.
I remember this discussion on Car Talk many years ago. Do you bring your car to the mechanic, or do you take your car to the mechanic? I’m not sure if they ever came up with an answer.
Is the top line really easier to remember than the bottom one?
Same in my New Orleanian U.S. dialect.
…
Reading through this thread, I’m trying to think of clear-cut cases in my dialect where bring and take aren’t interchangeable. There are some (probably many considering how broad a verb “take” really is), but for me they’ve taken a bit of thinking to uncover.
Here’s an example of ‘non-interchangeablility’:
(People planning a party)
A: I’ll bring the chips!
B: I’ll bring the salsa!
C: I’ll bring the beer!
Here, using “take” instead of “bring” loses the participatory connotation.
Later on, the three partygoers decided to carpool and thus load all their contributions into A’s trunk. Once they arrive at the venue, they divide the unloading chores:
A: I’ll take the chips!
B: I’ll take the salsa!
C: I’ll take the beer!
In my dialect, “bring” is not interchangeable with “take” here UNLESS the preposition “in” is included:
A: I’ll take the chips!
B: I’ll take the salsa!
C: I’ll bring the beer!
A: Hmmm? We already have beer.
C: I mean I’ll bring the beer in!
A: Gotcha – thanks for the help!
EDIT: Come to think of it … “bring in” and “take in” are synonymous around here – these sentences are also perfectly cromulent:
A: I’ll take the chips in!
B: I’ll take the salsa in!
C: I’ll take the beer in!
Exactly the same connotation around here – either is considered correct and both are commonly said.
I have such trouble knowing what difference she is talking about that I would just consider asking her to explain. If that’s not possible, then I’d want a list of times she’s corrected you and how.
She could believe that you bring to and take from. She could believe you take from or to but bring with. She could even have no consistent difference, and certain uses just feel wrong to her.
My personal differentiation is only in limited circumstances where one person provided something, while another person used it. For instance, “I took one of the cookies that Jan brought” is different from “I brought one of the cookies that Jan took.”
I don’t know; maybe she’s just being a nag, but that’s very unlike her. Born With Ten Toes is a great mnemonic, though. I can work with that. Hell, I’m even a foot fetishist.