People sometimes confuse bring and take and use one when the other is appropriate. Not New Yorkers; among those whom I know, they are consistent; they always reverse them! No need to go to war with a whole city, especially the country’s largest, but it is such a curious thing that someone invented the opening ditty. Watch any of the old “Seinfeld” episodes if evidence is needed. Not to exonerate the rest of us; misuse of these words is rampant, and at least New Yorkers are consistent.
The rule is relatively simple. Both verbs imply transport or escort, but from different points of view. Bring implies motion toward a place and take implies motion away from a place.
Husband at home is speaking to wife at her office and should say, “Bring the newspaper home this evening”; however, husband at his office speaking to wife at her office properly says, “Please take the newspaper home tonight.” It has to do with perspective, where the parties are in relation to the destination.
With the proliferation of BYOB restaurants, it is often said, “I’ll bring a bottle of red to the restaurant; why don’t you bring a white.” Wrong on both counts. Neither of the speakers is at the restaurant, so they are going to lug the wine to another place.
An analogy with the verbs come and go may help if you feel bring/take-challenged. People seem to make less errors with these verbs and if you couple bring with come and take with go, you’ll usually be on safe ground. “Come home and bring some milk.” “Go to the store and don’t forget to take your credit card.” If you are not quite sure, try to think in these terms; often the verbs come and go, while not expressed, are implicit in our daily conversation.
There is some encroachment taking place, and the principles set out above are bending; it seems that bring is edging out take. The evolving rule seems to be that if the speaker can put himself in the shoes of the other person, bring is preferred. Take my illustration above with husband at home and wife at her office, and she says: “I’ll bring the paper home tonight.” Though she is not at the destination of the object, she is speaking with one who is; and in that type of circumstance take yields to bring. There are apparently no situations where take is edging out bring (unless you are in New York where all bets are off).
While we’re at it, who anywhere in the universe outside of Gotham, of course, takes a haircut. Haven’t we actually left the barbershop somewhat lighter, physically and fiscally? And there’s the Hollywood mogul who takes lunch. Explanation? Every language has it idioms where rules are ignored. They bring color and life to our speech.
— Ken Butera