I’m reading The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs, and in it he quotes a little rhyme about the Jewish Sabbath:
A Shabbos well spent
brings a week of content.
He then says he agrees with the sentiment, if not the grammar.
I’ve been known to let a tense drift now and then, but I would say my knowledge of grammar is above average. I can’t find anything wrong with the grammar in this rhyme. Shabbos here is singular, so yeah, s on the end of bring.
Can you find what’s wrong with this rhyme?
Contentment might be the correcter word.
ETA unless he’s talking about news articles and social media posts. 
I know a lot of mavens get all a-twitter about most uses of “bring.” I can’t keep track of their quibbles, but could that be it?
I agree with Maserschmidt. “Content” is an adjective, and thus incorrect as the object of a preposition. Correct grammar would demand that the object of the preposition “of” should be a noun or noun phrase–thus, “contentment.”
Yes. “Content” with the stress on the second syllable is an adjective, not a noun: “My cat is very content with his accomodations.”
“Well spent” is past tense, and “brings” is present tense?
What a minuscule quibble, if that is the case.
What are their quibbles about “bring”? I have not heard of this.
Regards,
Shodan
Shouldn’t “well spent” be hyphenated?
That conversation should be taken somewhere else.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, “content” has been used as a noun meaning “satisfaction, pleasure; a contented condition” since 1578, with examples cited from Lyly, Marston, Pepys, Dryden, Pope, and Tennyson.
Bring is movement toward while take is movement away. It’s not a very useful distinction in my opinion.
Actually, here *well spent *is an adjective phrase. It has no tense, because it’s not functioning as a verb. It’s like saying: I like my steak well done.
No, because it’s predicative.
Those quibbles are imaginary, as Inner Stickler suggests.
Yes, there was once the use of content (second syllable stressed) to mean what we now refer to as contentment, but that’s essentially obsolete, I would say, and surely is issue which Jacobs is referring to.
. . . with the exception of the idiom, to one’s heart’s content.
There’s nothing wrong with it that I see. “Content” (with accent on the second syllable) is fine as a noun. See definitions here.
It’s not even marked as archaic or obsolete in either of these dictionaries. It certainly does not sound off to my ears.
I would say that “content” as a noun is the issue, too, but in any event, even if it would be ungrammatical for prose, the rules for poetry are generally a bit looser.
guizot does have a good point about “heart’s content”.
And I’d argue in this case, “bring” is preferred anyway, as, from your perspective, the motion is toward you. After all, you’d say, “Harry, bring that glass to me.” So, a Shabbos well spent brings [to you] a week of content.
So, a more correct rhyme would be:
A Shabbos well spent,
week’s contentment is sent.
(sent presumably from G-d)
Hmm…Nah, I prefer the original version. Still see nothing wrong with the grammar.
Oh yeah. Well, I hadn’t had my coffee yet.
He’s active on Twitter. Someone with an active account (unlike me) could just ask him.
If discontent is acceptable as a noun, why not content?
Winter of discontent…
Week of content…
Possibly it’s a tad unusual to say a Shabbos (as opposed to the Shabbos or just “Shabbos”), but my knowledge of Yiddish articles is not sufficient to be sure.