"Larry Jaques" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 18 Jan 2008 09:36:34 -0500, with neither quill nor qualm, "Ed
Huntress" quickly quoth:

Pfffht. From the American Heritage Dictionary, which is the most
*prescriptive* dictionary in America:

"When the relevant point of focus is not the place of speaking itself, the
difference obviously depends on the context. We can say either The labor
leaders brought or took their requests to the mayor's office, depending on
whether we want to describe things from the point of view of the labor
leaders or the mayor. Perhaps for this reason, the distinction between
bring
and take has been blurred in some areas; a parent may say of a child, for
example, She always takes a pile of books home with her from school. This
usage may sound curious to those who are accustomed to observe the
distinction more strictly, but it bears no particular stigma of
incorrectness or illiteracy."

The usage here is completely arbitrary: it depends upon whether the
speaker
(me) is at home, taking the snake, or at school, bringing the snake. There
is no "here" or "there" in my original sentence.

In my world, "to school" is the same as "there". And the parent should
have said her daughter "brought them home from school" because she was
home, or "here".

If the parent said "brought them home *from* school," then brought would be
easier to justify. "Home" is the physical point from which the statement is
asserted. If, on the other hand, I'm dragging a jar with a snake in it to
school, and if you know that I'm both at home and at school at different
times but my location at the time of the sentence is unspecified, it's just
like the example in Websters: the notion of direction exists in my head, and
it doesn't matter to the sentence whether I'm thinking from the point of
view of leaving home, or from the point of view of having arrived at school.



Here's a quote from Websters: "Merriam-Webster's quotes the 1984 edition
of
the Longman Dictionary of the English Language, which says, "Either verb
can be used when the point of view is irrelevant." The entry continues
with
an example of a couple who are about to leave home for a concert; the wife
says, "Don't forget to bring the umbrella." Merriam-Webster's says that
the
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."

She was right. He brought it to her in the car and they left.

But she wasn't yet in the car, so, by your rule, one would *take* it to the
car. As the example says, the notion of where she is exists entirely in her
head.



This is a typical schoolmarm distinction that doesn't really exist in the
language, like splitting infinitives (it's done all the time by the best
writers, and always has been) or not ending a sentence with a preposition
(it's not English; it's not anything, actually). When we start getting
formal, I'll listen. (But I probably won't agree.) However, this is a
distinction that, as AHD says, is blurred in real use.

Well, schoolmarm Larry thinks it's much less blurred. Pffffht!

The best usage dictionaries in America today disagree with you in this case.
d8-)

--
Ed Huntress