Bring vs. Take

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hey, this is Shane from Dallas, Texas.

Hi, Shane. Welcome to the program.

Thanks.

What can we do for you?

Well, I have a question about the confusion of bring and take.

Okay.

I never get those two confused, at least I don’t think I do, and I’m always baffled by why other people do. In fact, I remember when I was in the third grade in Mrs. Bynum’s reading class, we had this grammar book that every page or two had a different grammar lesson. And one day we came to the page that had bring and take. And our teacher said, well, this is something we don’t confuse in the South. I’m from Alabama originally. So we just kind of turned the page and went on.

Yeah.

So, I mean, I remember that because, you know, in the South we have, you know, things like y’all and fixing that are kind of weird. But this one thing we didn’t get wrong. So it was a long time before I kind of heard that used incorrectly probably when I was in college and was around people from other parts of the country. And now I even hear it in commercials. I hear it in movies. I guess my question is do I understand it the correct way and why does it seem a lot of people get confused?

Well, now, Shane, how do you understand it? And before I ask you that, did you say let me carry you to the store?

No, I did not say that.

Okay.

That would be common, sure.

Yeah, yeah. Some people in Alabama say, let me carry you to the store. That’s very true.

So, Shane, where you come from, you would take a girl out to the dance, and then you would bring her home before midnight, right?

Exactly.

That’s why you would use take and bring.

Oh, that’s a good example.

Right. But, you know, I hear people say things like, you know, I need a ride to the doctor. Can you bring me to the doctor? Like, no, I can’t bring you there. I can take you there, but I can’t bring you there.

But I understand, yeah.

And why do you think there’s a difference? What’s the difference exactly between bring and take?

I think it has to do with where you are. So you can bring something to me or I can take something away from me, if that makes sense. So if you were inviting me to your house for dinner, I could say, what should I bring to your house?

I would think you would probably say, what should I take?

Yeah, I think it’s confusing. And you know what? I grew up not seeing any difference and not being taught any difference at all. So I guess I’m in that big swath of people who don’t see a difference. But once I got older, I realized that there are some people who really get rubbed the wrong way if you use bring or take in a different way like that. And so I’ve tried to change my speech just because the people who get annoyed by it, like you, are annoyed by it. And the people like me, who didn’t learn anything else, don’t know the difference.

Yeah, I guess to me it’s just crystal clear. It’s like you wouldn’t mix up he and she, right? They’re just two totally different concepts.

That’s so interesting.

Grant, did you grow up with that difference?

Well, I learned it somewhere along the way. But it’s one of those things that it isn’t crystal clear for me. And the more I look at the data, I start to see that historically that bring and take both have intermeshing uses and meanings. And so that they’re not, I can see from the data that they’re not perfectly separated and they’re not very distinct in the way that they’re used. I do know that some people make a big to-do out of certain cases. Like you don’t take me that book, you know, you would say bring me that book, right? So there’s some stuff like that absolutely you would never do. So just the same way you would never say, I’m going to bring two donuts out of that box.

No, you’re going to take two donuts out of that box, right? So there’s some stuff there that is clear, but there’s a middle ground there where bring and take overlap almost perfectly. And the difficulty here is how one perceives the importance of the subject and the object, it sounds like to me. And so whether or not you think something is being done to someone or someone is doing something else. See what I’m saying?

So which one is performing the action? Bring her to the party, take her to the party. Kind of a close call.

Oh, okay.

You know, the song is take me out to the ballgame. It’s not bring me out to the ballgame.

That’s a good one.

Right?

Yeah.

Right. At least in that case, is it more clear cut or is that just kind of in the gray area?

Yeah, but we’re also talking about a phrasal verb here because it’s take out. It’s a take and out working together in a phrasal verb. It’s not just take on its own. And you’ll find again and again with bring and take that they often work with prepositions. And that changes the way that they work. It changes the way that they fit into the sentence and the way that we understand their meaning.

But if I were already at the ballgame and I called you on my cell phone and I said, Shane, get Grant to, I’d say to bring you to the ballgame.

Absolutely.

Yeah, very good. One of the best distinctions is that bring is about incoming and take is about outgoing.

All right.

All right.

Does that work for you, Shane?

That works for me.

Thanks very much. We’ll provide some links to the different sides of this argument of a bring and take. We’ll try to find some really conservative points of view and some very progressive points of view and see if we can’t put these together so that people can kind of find their middle road on bring and take.

Okay?

Great. Sounds good.

Thanks a lot, Shane.

Thank you so much, Shane.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

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