| 词组 | bring |
| 释义 | bring 1. Bring, take. Although one would imagine that most native speakers of English have mastered the directional complexities of bring and take by the time they are old enough to read, a surprisingly large number of usage commentators have felt it incumbent upon themselves to explain this subtlety to adults. The basic point they make is this: bring implies movement toward the speaker, and take implies movement away. It is a point well made, and it holds for all cases to which it applies. It does not, alas, apply to all cases of actual use of these verbs, and hence the commentators' despair: Harper 1975, 1985 says, "The distinction between bring and take is one that today is honored in the breach almost as often as in the observance." The problem, however, is not one of usage; it is one of oversimplification on the part of the prescribers. Longman 1984 makes an important point most commentators overlook: "Either verb can be used where the point of view is irrelevant." This irrelevance to the reader (or hearer) can be illustrated by several examples. The first is hypothetical. Let us suppose that the editor and his wife are about to go to an outdoor concert at the park. They have folding chairs and perhaps picnic things to take. The editor's wife sees some cumulus clouds in the western sky. "Don't forget to bring the umbrella," she tells the editor, as they prepare to leave. The use of bring here instead of take suggests that the editor's wife is already thinking of being at the concert and possibly needing the umbrella. The notion of direction exists entirely in her head; it does not refer to her immediate external surroundings. The direction implicit in bring (or take) in this instance is irrelevant to both the editor and to any third party who may overhear. The message is to make sure the umbrella is at the park in case of rain. Shakespeare provides a similar example. In Much Ado About Nothing (act 3, scene 5), the constable Dogberry has gone before a magistrate with news of the capture of a couple of suspicious characters whom he would like the magistrate to examine; the magistrate is in haste to be elsewhere and tells Dogberry to examine the men himself. As the magistrate leaves, Dogberry says to his partner Verges: • Go, good partner, go get you to Francis Seacoal; bid him bring his pen and inkhorn to the jail. Like the editor's wife above, Dogberry is thinking ahead. Shakespeare provides us with another example in The Comedy of Errors. In this exchange each of the men thinks that the other has the gold chain they are talking about: • ANTIPHOLUS (OF EPHESUS). And with you take the chain, and bid my wife Disburse the sum on the receipt thereof. Perchance I will be there as soon as you. •ANGELO. Then you will bring the chain to her yourself? Again the notion of direction is irrelevant to the audience. More recent examples are not hard to find: • In 1934 the rise of Hitler brought to Michael Ustinov uncomfortable memories of the repression he had once experienced in Russia, and he brought his family back to Stockholm —Current Biography, November 1965 • Copies will be given to pupils to bring home to their parents —TV. Y. Times, 5 Mar. 1970 • John Thompson talks about the youngster who was doing poorly in school, whose father couldn't read or write, whose mother was concerned about her son's potential. She brought him to a professional educator, a doctor —Bruce Lowitt & Ira Rosenfeld (AP), Morning Union (Springfield, Mass.), 17 Mar. 1985 The notion of direction is irrelevant to the reader in each of these cases. Yet Theodore Bernstein criticized the second in his Winners & Sinners, and a correspondent sent the third into us, believing it to be an error. Neither one is an error. It is pointless to try to impose one's own point of view on something that has been written from a different point of view. And in the two newspaper examples, the reporters may well have been paraphrasing an original statement, distancing the reader even further from the point of view of the original user of bring. Harper 1975, 1985 considers this use of bring "a debasement of our language." If it is such, the process of debasement has been going on for nearly 400 years, if not longer. There is a related use of bring, in which the subject and object are both persons. It means approximately "to cause to come or go along with; to escort, accompany." It too is common in Shakespeare's plays: • ... in the morn I'll bring you to your ship—The Tempest, 1612 • I will bring thee where Mistress Anne Page is —The Merry Wives of Windsor, 1601 • Will you go to them? I will bring you thither — Romeo and Juliet, 1595 The OED marks this sense Obs. exc. dial. It has survived in the U.S.: • I had a sudden desire to see Sheela myself... and when Florrie offered to bring me along with her that evening I took her up at once —Mary Deasy, Saturday Evening Post, 16 May 1964 U.S. survival seems to be chiefly dialectal; the Dictionary of American Regional English lists examples from several geographical areas, chiefly in relation to going or returning from a social event such as a dance. The use is not directional: someone can be brought to the dance and brought home afterward. It is perhaps permanently fixed in the country expression (slightly altered here): • I've got to dance with the ones what brung me — Representative Philip Gramm, quoted in People, 24 Jan. 1983 The American dialectal survival is probably another one of those older English usages that came over to this continent with early settlers and stayed in use here after falling into general disuse in Great Britain. For another such survival, see loan, lend. Conclusion: a native speaker of English will hardly ever misuse bring or take; the problem exists in the minds of the usage commentators, who have formulated incomplete rules for the use of bring. The non-native speaker can easily follow the commentators' simple rules. But bring and take are used in a great many idiomatic phrases—bring to bear, take to task, bring to mind—in which the verbs are never interchanged. The non-native speaker will find no guidance to these in our usage writers; he or she must have recourse to a good dictionary. 2. The Dictionary of American Regional English notes a widespread occurrence of the secondary variant past and past participle brung. It is used, as noted above, in the fixed phrase "dance with the one what brung me." While the DARE information suggests no educational level for users of brung, it is widely perceived as a form used by less educated persons: • "... guess what? I brung along me new boyfriend " —David French, Leaving Home, 1972 It is used for humorous effect too: • "Well, Mr. Ambassador," drawled South Carolina Democratic Sen. Ernest (Fritz) Hollings ... , "we brung you a half." —Albert R. Hunt, Wall Street Jour., 8 Aug. 1983 |
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