Bought vs Brought

[Curiosity101]

AIBU to cringe every time someone uses 'brought' when they mean 'bought'?

"I went to the shop and brought a ^^"

I don't normally care about things like this. Never ever correct anyone (even in this case). But for some reason this one really makes me cringe.

Is brought rather than bought always wrong? Or AIBU and it's regional or something?

There's a similar interesting paper he contributed to on "few" and "less" and why, very often, the people who "get their Sharpie out" are, quite simply, fools themselves, and, wrong.

What does he say about that? Have we been mistaken all of this time, or is it a case of something incorrect becoming accepted as acceptable/right simply by dint of enough people using it? That sounds interesting.

I wouldn't go through correcting people on MN, but I for one don't value proper spelling and grammar purely to demonstrate my presumed superiority - I'm just interested in language and in learning.

Language is for communicating and, if you just ignore the accepted standard rules of your own language, you must realise that you frequently will not be properly understood by the people with whom you're trying to communicate. An incoherent long paragraph of punctuation-free poor grammar and spelling doesn't mean that you are stupid, but it will not achieve its purpose of enabling your target to properly understand what you are trying to tell them. It WILL impact on your ability to succeed and progress in the world of employment and in society in general. Somebody could give you a huge box of the most exquisite chocolates, but if you can't be bothered to try and remove the cellophane wrapping, they may as well just not have bothered in the first place.

Taken to extremes, you may as well be speaking two completely different languages. I could be an English language professor and another person a Japanese language professor - but if we have no mutually-understood means of relating verbally with each other, we cannot expect to have a hope of knowing what each other is saying, no matter how intelligent we might be.

I can't find it on Google now, Sausage, but if you scroll way back on Pedants' Corner (when it was interesting and we spent days mulling over usage, before it was sadly taken over by posters who thought it was funny to start threads poking fun at others) there was a long thread about it. I'll see if I can find it.

Blimey, I went back as far as 2014 and still can't find it!
A million others with shouty people going "fewer! it's fucking fewer! How hard can it be!" though.

If you bring it you brought it if you buy it you bought it. That’s how I was taught many many years ago.

I’m glad you bought that to our attention 😂

BookMeOnTheSudExpress

Shall I offer a punctuation lesson? Or would that be very twatty of me?

There is a comma missing in your own post about missing commas.

While we are on the subject I get really annoyed by people saying "I borrowed him a fiver" rather than "I lent him a fiver."

I suspect it's a regional thing though

Probably is. Thing is, if you read the thread, you'll see I'm not the one slagging off other people's mistakes, then making much more glaring, and indeed, elementary ones. I just like to point those out as, apparently, it's OK to do so, and the poorly educated and ignorant will doff their thicko caps and thank the pointer-outer for doing it.

Why did you namechange btw? Too embarrassed at your atrocious English upthread?
I can understand that.

Free, as in... ONE, TWO, FREE...
NO! no no no

I will admit to a fleeting sadness that DS no longer says 'brang' when he meant 'brought'. It was one of those toddlerisms that persisted until he was a teenager 'My teacher asked me to bring her my book, so I brang it to her' I have no idea where he got it from, but it was so sweet.

The 'could/would/should of' people can fuck off though.

Brought, torlet, Chester draws or Chester drawers. I know a teacher who says you’ve drawed a lovely picture. Argh!!!

Thanks for looking, BookMe - I'll see if I come across anything on my online travels.

I will admit to a fleeting sadness that DS no longer says 'brang' when he meant 'brought'.

I blame Neil Diamond for this! 'Play Me' was such a touching song, spoiled only by that one ridiculous jarring inclusion in the otherwise beautiful lyrics:

Songs she sang to me
Songs she brang to me

He would have been better changing the line to 'wellies she wanged at me' - it makes no sense in context and is as far from romantic as you can get - but at least it would have been (colloquially) grammatically correct.

I just found this, although, as I'm reading it, DC doesn't seem to be defending the blurring of the distinction of less/fewer - just noting that it is happening and that some people are unhappy about that.

file:///C:/Users/outdo/Downloads/English87%20(1).pdf

Sadeyedlady I feel a bit the same way about 'lallow' vs 'yellow'

As much hatred as I feel for the word 'brang', I did and do love that song WebuiltThisBuffet.

The amount of posters saying their "teeth itch" is more irritating than anything else.

The R is the key.
bRing, bRought
buy, bought

IMO people who make that or similar mistakes often aren’t even aware that they’re wrong, though, or else think there’s some great mystique to it that’s beyond them. I once saw someone on a different forum ask how they were supposed to know when it was so difficult - after they’d been corrected (not by me, I hasten to add.).

Ditto its/it’s, your/you’re, who’s/whose, there/their/they’re, loose/lose, etc.

BookMeOnTheSudExpress

Why did you namechange btw? Too embarrassed at your atrocious English upthread?
I can understand that

Not at all. In this particular case I think "PedantSpotter was appropriate.

I was amused by your pompous hypocrisy. You painted yourself as some sort of defender of posters making mistakes. You set yourself up as an expert in grammar, yet your own post , offering to correct grammar, had mistakes in it.

On reflection perhaps "Pointing out pompous poster isn't as clever as she thinks she is" would have been a more appropriate name change.

A younger sister used to say brung, or even brunged - ‘We’ve brunged them all in, Mummy’.

Must say I find it fascinating how very small children will mis-apply the grammatical rules they’ve unconsciously absorbed, e.g. to irregular verbs, so they say ‘He goed, they comed’, etc.

Ditto its/it’s, your/you’re, who’s/whose, there/their/they’re, loose/lose, etc.
and led/lead, woman/women,
and why in the name of flip have so many people reversed the meanings of worse and worst?

Hurrah, brung makes an appearance at last, thought it had died. Can I make a case for restaurateur? No N. Not restauranter. Just seen it in a broadsheet newspaper. Bah.

Yes GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER!

My daughter said ‘teached’ the other day. Made perfect sense to her.

Valentimes instead of Valentines
Chimley instead of Chimney

Give me the rage. So much