Bring vs. Take

[George Thompson]

Wilson:
"(One my wife's pet peeves is the loss of the distinction between
_bring_ and _take_.)"

Is this a Pennsylvania thing?
One of the many things my defunct mother-in-law found objectionable in me was my inability to use" bring" and "take" properly.  Many a time did she explain to me that one would always bring something to a place and then take it back -- unless one took something to a place and then brought it back -- it was one or the other -- I could never keep it straight -- so I would alternate between the two, figuring that that would make her happy half of the time.
Not how she worked, however -- I succeeded in making her unhappy half of the time.

She was from western Pennsylvania, a prescriptivist high-school English teacher.

Fondly remembered, of course.

GAT

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.

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