Why do people get bought and brought mixed up?

[Starllight]

A Monday morning irk of mine… Surely people know the difference?

Bought - past tense of buy

Brought - past tense of bring

As a side note, where I now live in Scotland I have never come across anyone get this mixed up. Perhaps that’s why it irks me when I see it?!

YABU - They’re both very similar and easy to get them mixed up
YANBU - It looks/sounds completely ridiculous when people use ‘brought’ instead of bought

Are you a non-native speaker?

That’s interesting, I thought that there was generally a very very lightly pronounced “r” sound in “brought” in most English accents, but it would be so gentle compared to a Scottish one that it might almost go unheard.

Verbally they can sound very similar. People can often struggle with 'r' sounds

I went to the shop and I bought a coffee. I brought it to work as I had to rush.

The meaning is quite easily blurred too as both words can work together in context.

OP, I bet that you also find it surprising that some people might not hear any difference between “where” and “wear”, “whales” and “wales”. Those words sound so different to me that whenever someone tries to make a pun involving them I have to say “ah yes, that would work if read in an English accent”.

See also a million kids’ birthday cards featuring dinosaurs saying “Have a roarsome birthday”. That sounds to me about as similar to “awesome” as black does to white.

I think you've answered your own question OP 😁

A perfect demonstration of how easy it is to get wrong.

BogRollBOGOF · Today 08:05

I went to the shop and I bought a coffee. I brought it to work as I had to rush.

There's another one, it's "I took it to work."

So cross with myself for proving my point! My defence is that I was word blind due to seeing the words written so often 😉

That’s a good point - I would say ‘took’ instead of ‘brought’ in most scenarios I can think of

Maybe they haven't had their morning coffee?

God I hate these posts. The faux innocent 'I just don't understand why people aren't as perfect and clever as I am, I genuinely want to know,

My mum mixed it up because she was dragged up, abused and never educated. My best friend mixes them up because she's severely dyslexic. The woman I chat to on the school run mixes them up because English isn't her first language.

Could be either.

You’re welcome! 😉

But seriously, it was a really stupid question, especially as you yourself have proved how the two can be confusing! There are much better examples of words people confuse for no good reason - like pacific and specific.

And surely the Scottish situation is easily explained by the accent and the rolling R sound.

I love a bit of pedantry but this is a poor example!

Meh. I'm an English teacher and I have to stop and actively think about it when I have cause to use one to write down. Doesn't help that in my accent they're virtually indistinguishable from one another. There are bigger fish to fry than this. Teach your children it, remind them when they use it wrong, but other than that don't get too cross about it, this shit is hard for a lot of people.

I'm dyslexic and people like you that would just assume I'm lazy and stupid are the reason I never comment or post on mumsnet.

I don’t think that is quite fair BOOP, the meanings of “bought” and “brought” are very distinct.

There is no context in which you would describe the act of handing over money in exchange for an item as “bringing” and to most people it’s a fairly simple exercise- “br” in the infinitive matches up with “br” in the past participle.

Autocorrect and written word blindness will play a part though.

I’m in my 50’s and still have to say in my head ‘buy and bought, bring and brought’ whenever I write it out. It just doesn’t stick and I guess after all these years it’s not going to 😁

How can you tell someone went to Cambridge?

Thanks for this perspective. I genuinely was interested as it’s so distinctively different to me (apart from when I made my faux pas further up the post 😅)

This.

You know what they mean, so just ignore it! Not everyone is great at English grammar and spelling, for a whole plethora of reasons.

It only annoys me if it's in a printed publication which really should have been checked and edited.

Starllight · Today 08:09

That’s a good point - I would say ‘took’ instead of ‘brought’ in most scenarios I can think of

It irks me a bit, my daughter will say, "I need to bring Xyz to school tomorrow," as the teacher has told her to bring it.

Not really. If you were in work at the time you would usually say 'brought'. If you weren't, you would usually say 'took'.

Catnary · Today 08:10

Could be either.

It's really not:

Bring it here.
Take it there.

Some people don't read books and have never seen the word written correctly, and also don't think about what they are saying.

I blame the moral decline of society, Social Media, the Tories, Reality Television 'Shows' and Climate Change.

and Brexit of course, (known as Bexit in our house).

😆

Breggzit / Beggzit, surely?

😁

So ... what would you say if you were in work when you were describing your actions? 'Brought' or 'took'?

@Catnary it is perfectly possible to exchange the two words though and still have a correct sentence.

I bought an apple.
i brought an apple.

Of course they have completely different meanings. I know that, you know that, the op knows that. But it doesn’t take the brains of Einstein to work out why some people might confuse them does it?

I hate these disingenuous questions, like another poster said, which are asked to prove how clever the op is. It’s really not cool.