2

I think when we talk about someone else it is not hard to choose the right word between "bring" and "take". But when we talk about ourselves it seems that it makes no difference whether we choose one or the other.

For example :

  1. I will take three suitcases with me when I travel to Paris.

  2. Since Mary has just moved to town, I will bring/take her with me to luncheon on Sunday.

  3. When I opened my luggage in the hotel room, I realized I had forgotten to bring/take my new suit for the interview.

  4. I've brought / taken my car with me.

So especially what is the right word for sentence 4 and why?

Centaurus
  • 50,047
Mrt
  • 1,448
  • 10
  • 36
  • 63
  • ... See especially nohat's answer. Here, bring/take probably have different meanings in (2), different perspectives (with myself or from home) in (3) and (4). – Edwin Ashworth Jan 15 '15 at 01:02
  • @EdwinAshworth Thank you for the link.I've read the thread.I have already known the perpective rule which works well for the options on my questions.According to the rule if you are not there, do no use the word "bring". But as Nohat said, for some situations either bring or take works.He says that you can say "bring or take your books to school" even though you are at home when you say that.So it is maybe not grammatically but colloquially correct to use one of them if we talk about ourselves. – Mrt Jan 15 '15 at 01:23
  • Grammatical 'strictly' (and we use the strict definition on ELU) refers to what is considered a correct construction. 'Colorless green ideas sleep furiously' is grammatical. It's often (as here) not that 'a grammar rule is being broken' but that 'accepted practice seems illogical and/or inconsistent'. For instance, 'Is this Julie?' is as acceptable as 'Is that Julie?' when answering a phone call. And 'rules' are often trotted out as being universal and immutable; they have exceptions, and can change; 'It's me' is almost always preferred to 'It is I' nowadays. – Edwin Ashworth Jan 15 '15 at 10:23

1 Answers1

2

Perhaps if you used something other than "car" in your example, you would get interesting and useful answers. As it is, the only thing I can say is that you would not say you "brought" your car with you; neither would you say you had "taken" it with you. You either "drove" it to your destination, "had it driven" there by somebody else, or "had it shipped".

Brian Hitchcock
  • 13,674