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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Bought vs Brought

286 replies

Curiosity101 · 29/02/2020 22:43

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?

OP posts:
DollyDoneMore · 01/03/2020 00:12

One that really makes my teeth itch is “make my teeth itch “, a Mumsnet cliche I’ve never seen or heard in real life.

toffeeghirl · 01/03/2020 00:13

Wright instead of right or write.

I'm wound up regularly with the amount of adults on fb that don't know the difference between are and our.

JuanSheetIsPlenty · 01/03/2020 00:13

The joke

@JuanSheetIsPlenty

Don’t you mean jorke?

CountessAlexandrovna · 01/03/2020 00:15

When people write peaked my interest, when they mean piqued my interest.

Or I’m going to lay down, when they mean lie down (as PPs have commented). NO!

Flymetothetoon · 01/03/2020 00:16

The use of brought when something had actually been bought as in 'i went to marks and Spencer's and I bought a lovely dress'
This is ok
'I went to marks and Spencer's and brought a lovely dress'
Not ok
Where the fuck did you bring the dress from you fucking fuckwit!

namechangin · 01/03/2020 00:17

@billy1966 is that not a regional thing though? I know people who would pronounce the a but I pronounce it with more of an er sound everyone in my area would too. For example my name ends with a ya and people who aren't local say "yah" but when I myself say it I say "yer"

namechangin · 01/03/2020 00:18

The wrong to/too/two really gets me and sometimes I'll read a whole paragraph and be really confused by the meaning because of the wrong use then realise they meant a different one.

CountessAlexandrovna · 01/03/2020 00:19

Gaaah, there was another ex who didn’t know when to use an apostrophe.

Eg. Johns trouser’s.

He was convinced ‘I was sat’ was correct.

I sure picks them doesn’t I?

doolally1 · 01/03/2020 00:19

I think the difficulty is when the wrong "version" becomes common. I never confuse brought & bought but the other day I doubted myself for a split second for writing bear it as I'm so used to seeing bare. Everyone says stood or sat that I forgot it was wrong until reading this thread

DidoLamenting · 01/03/2020 00:22

Learned me/ learned him is another that is simply an older usage:

Cope sent a letter frae Dunbar
Chairlie meet me an' ye dare
I'll learn ye the airts o' war
If ye'll meet me in the morning

It's a verse about a battle in the 1745 Jacobite rebellion, written contemporaneously.

AngeloMysterioso · 01/03/2020 00:29

There’s a YouTuber whose tutorials I watch online who pronounces et cetera “eck cetera”. Drives me fucking nuts.

See also: would of instead of would have, we was instead of we were, I done instead of I did.

People who confuse itch and scratch. You don’t itch something, it itches and you scratch it!

My MIL calls M&S “Markses” and John Lewis “John Lewises” and that makes me twitch as well!

AcrossthePond55 · 01/03/2020 00:43

I'm in the US, for me it's 'axed' instead of 'asked'. As in "I 'axed' my mother for a donut". You cut her in two because you wanted a donut? Drives me nuts.

I've also noticed a rise in people here using 'verse' when they mean 'versus'. As in "This match is Serena verse Venus". Arrrgggghh!!!

Most mispronunciations or misuses just make me sigh. But those two get on my last nerve.

Belledan1 · 01/03/2020 03:52

Just think brought is like bringing something so think its got an r in it as bring does. Its like stationary and stationery. Alot of people get that wrong but I think envelope so know its the e one. I really have to think about being and been even though are totally different!!!

Whichoneofyoudidthat · 01/03/2020 03:56

I’m just thankful my kids have stopped saying brang.

eaglejulesk · 01/03/2020 04:09

And this is a regular thing?? I would assume that the sort of person who chooses to use an obscure word like "rapt" would know how to spell it!

It seems to be mainly a young person thing (here in NZ/Australia anyway). They often say they are rapt about something, but they genuinely believe it to be spelled wrapped. I've seen it many times.

EndeavourMorse · 01/03/2020 04:35

Are there any simple books anyone can recommend on this topic? I’m now mildly curious to know what mistakes I’m making unconsciously 😀.

Notajogger · 01/03/2020 05:02

"Alot" instead of a lot.

The weird use of "females" instead of "women" I keep seeing on here - not technically wrong but sounds odd.

Less/fewer.

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 01/03/2020 05:08

I agree with Juan.

Of course, you shouldn't do it sneeringly or patronisingly, but I too don't understand how it's really different from any other kind of knowledge that people may not know correctly. Isn't it better for somebody to kindly mention it rather than to leave you in your ignorance, applying for jobs, sending off important communications and never having a clue that people might be laughing at you behind your back?

The problem is that, if a common misuse gains enough ground and goes unchallenged for long enough, you will find that the person using it correctly ends up firstly being mocked for showing off and then, before too long, ridiculed by the uninformed majority for being supposedly wrong, when they are in fact correct (and I'm not just talking about Dan Quayle).

Using the example given earlier, can you imagine people regularly mocking you for stating that Washington DC is the US capital, purely because enough people mistakenly believe it to be New York?

Another one that absolutely baffles me is 'nucular'.

"If something isn't old and has just been made, how would you describe it?"
"New."
"How would you complete the phrase 'Let's make sure that the coast is....' ?"
"Clear."
"So how would you describe electricity that's produced by the fission of uranium and plutonium?"
"Nucular."

Aaaaaaggghhh!!! You can obviously say it, so why could you possibly think that it's pronounced that way?!

OhTheRoses · 01/03/2020 05:20

I myself. John and myself. Myself and the team.

Pretty sure people do it because they don't know when to use I or me.

Irritates me disproprtionately.

dancebabydance · 01/03/2020 05:20

I say so many of these words/phrases that 'make everyone's teeth itch' (who knew that was a saying)

It's why whenever I write anything down for work someone always proof reads it for me and changes all my mistakes. But to me it makes sense because I type how I talk

OhTheRoses · 01/03/2020 05:23

Disproportionately.

Also misuse of was and were.

Was you going to town?
An extra 50 dinners was served last week (DC's primary head Shock).

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 01/03/2020 05:27

Also, 'breath' is a noun and 'breathe' is a verb. Nobody would ever say "I could hardly breath" so why do they so often write that?

The battle is all but lost now when it comes to comparatives and superlatives. Something is the bigger of two but the biggest of three or more. My DC's school made a display demonstrating that they clearly didn't know this, so that's goodness knows how many children who will have it fixed wrongly in their minds for life. The subjunctive has largely gone the same way. They also teach them 'one pence' and refer to a die as 'a dice'. They'd never talk about 'a dogs' or 'a houses' so why?!

'Fiance(e)' too. When a female poster on MN refers to her 'fiancee' without using any pronouns, are we to assume that: she's a lesbian as she has indicated and respond accordingly; insult her knowledge of language by asking for clarification and suggesting that she might be mistaken if she is indeed straight; or even assume that she means a man and would have specifically mentioned if she was in a same-sex engaged couple?

Language matters.

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 01/03/2020 05:34

Pretty sure people do it because they don't know when to use I or me.

Yes. Plenty of people have learned from childhood that you should say "You and I are going to school" as 'you and me' is wrong, but they then think that 'you and me' is always wrong and will then attempt to 'correct' somebody for saying "That would be nice for you and me" as if it were sloppy English, when it's just correct English. You'd never for a moment dream of saying "That would be nice for I", so why would the additional person change that?

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 01/03/2020 05:38

The weird use of "females" instead of "women" I keep seeing on here - not technically wrong but sounds odd.

I've noticed that too. People would never talk about taking their 'canine' for a walk or preparing dinner for their 'young', would they?

OhTheRoses · 01/03/2020 05:38

Less people have Coronavirus now. It's fewer.