I’d say it doesn’t matter whether you bring or take - except when it does, and in those latter cases no native English speaker is going to choose the wrong one:
You look exhausted - take a break!
The new city council member brings a wealth of experience to the discussion.
Man up and take your medicine. Bring it in for a hug, bro!
It’s okay to go slow - take your time.
It’s a corny story, but it brings tears to my eyes every time. Take me, for example.
I bring good news!
What lesson do you take from his mistake?
Which brings me to my next point…
It takes a lot of courage to do what you did. Bring me my sweater when you get a chance, please. Take the scenic route, you won’t regret it.
If I’m talking to the mechanic:
“I’ll bring it in around 10:30”
If I’m talking to someone at home:
“I’m taking my car to the mechanic at 10:30”
(in my dialect, those sound most normal)
Bring is generally motion toward where we are now, or toward the location of the person I’m talking to. Bring has the general connotation of arrival or having an object with me.
Take is generally motion away from where we are now, or motion away from a familiar place such as home. Take has a general connotation of departure.
None of this is very concrete. If I used the less conventional word in most contexts it would scarcely raise an eyebrow.
There are a few non interchangeable contexts. If we’re on a picnic and my wife is puzzled at my choice of some thing or other, it’s “why did you bring that thing?”. It would be slightly confusing if she said “why did you take that thing?” when the thing is right here with us.
Most of those examples aren’t about picking up an object and carrying it somewhere though. Bring and take have different senses of meaning in a lot of those cases.
I was taught that bring goes with come, and take goes with go, more or less. It’s what an earlier poster said about perspective. You bring something; someone else takes it. Of course, you can be the taker, if you’re the second one to handle it… My fifth grade teacher got a little muddled after that.
Still, my mnemonic was always that “come and go” are alphabetic that way, and so are “bring and take.” Match them up, and you’ll be right nearly all the time. The times when it absolutely clunks, you change it.
As others have said, the difference should be the same as that between come and go: bring/come when the movement is toward the speaker and take/go when it’s away from the speaker.
A few years ago, I started noticing TV and film dialogue with things like, “Well, I don’t want to come to your party!” I initially put the blame on ignorance but eventually noticed the “misuse” among educated speakers, in formal contexts and going back in time. Sorry, no specific examples and no mnemonic. I just wanted to say it bothered me for a long time and not so much anymore.
I used to think there might be some kind of implicit or explicit definition that causes people to “misuse” the terms, like maybe come/bring meaning “to act on an invitation.” Now I think it’s just regional, as suggested upthread, and also that people may be repeating what they’ve just heard:
Would you like to come to my party? I’d love to come to your party!
For this person who has English as 2nd language* this has always caused me a headache. It wouldn’t be a problem if there was a clear cut rule, but:
BYOB
Well, from my perspective, if not prompted, I want to say Should I bring my own beer/booze?
I don’t know why but Should I take my own beer/booze?
sounds horribly wrong.
*And my 3rd language, Spanish, doesn’t make it easier with traer and llevar since they in turn explain that as it’s just as in English with bring and take, while being equally fluid in practice. Grrrr.
In Spanish, the dikdik — I mean deictic! — distinction is more rigidly observed than in English. “Traer” is always for something being brought to the speaker, or where the speaker is located, while “llevar” is for something taken somewhere else.
(Related fact: In Spanish, if you’re talking to someone who is not where you are (on the telephone, in another room…), and they tell you to come, you don’t reply “I’m coming,” as you would in English. Instead, you say “I’m going” (me voy, or ya voy). Spanish focuses on the act of moving from the speaker’s perspective, while English focuses on the hearer’s. Love those dikdiks!).
Suppose your mother is in the hospital. Do you take her some flowers, or do you bring her some flowers?
The pedant would say that you must take her the flowers, since they are going toward the hospital. On the other hand, my instinct would be to say that I am bringing her flowers, since I am sort of putting myself in her shoes, looking the transaction from her point of view, imagining her pleasure at receiving the flowers.
Conclusion: those pedants who insist on a sharp distinction between the two words are heartless people who lack empathy.
Hmmm. Not disputing you, but in my mind I hear ¡Llevame una copa! or ¡No olvides traer la basura!. But I also hear ¡Trae me una caña! which makes me wonder if there’s a regional/dialect shift going on.
/Hijack
You’re right! I think the examples you mentioned are due to the speaker-focus vs. person-spoken-to-focus I decribed in my parenthetical note. But there’s probably a regional distinction, too – I learned what Spanish I have in Yucatan, Mexico.
I’m probably older than you and that usage has always seemed correct and natural to me. I can even give it some rational justification by saying that the speaker is courteously adopting the directional perspective of the party-thrower.
It would sound weird to me to say to somebody “I don’t want to go to your party” (and not just because I love parties!). I might say to somebody else“Eh, I don’t know if I really want to go to X’s party” or “I’m so excited about going to X’s party”, because both that other person and I have the same directional perspective, so to speak, about X’s party: it is there, and we are here, so we are going to it (or not going to it, as the case may be).
But it would sound weird to use that phrasing when talking to X themself. X is where the party’s at. Talking to X puts me in the “here” zone for the party, not the “there” zone. So when I speak to X, I speak of “coming to your party”, not “going to it”.
Bring on me (bring on me)