So a little while ago, I made an English lesson where I told two jokes.
And as I told those jokes, apparently I made a mistake.
Me, an English teacher on YouTube made a mistake while speaking English for the whole world to hear.
Let's watch the little segments where I make this apparent mistake.
And then I'll explain in a bit why this was a mistake and why it actually wasn't a mistake as well.
So the police officer and the man.
They put all of the penguins into the back of the pickup truck and the man leaves to bring them to the zoo.
The joke is funny because, of course, the police officer wanted the man to bring the penguins to the zoo, because that's where animals like that belong.
So when I had the idea for this English lesson, I thought I'll go find a nice location on a nice snowy day.
I'll record myself telling both jokes.
I'll go home and edit the video and I'll put the English lesson online.
I did that and people watched it and people enjoyed it.
And then it started to get really popular and more and more people watched it.
And then the comments started to come in.
Comments like this, no, The police officer did not want the man to bring the penguins to the zoo.
He wanted the man to take the penguins to the zoo.
Or this one.
In English, you do not bring them to the zoo.
You take them.
An error in your English.
You can only say bring the penguins to the zoo if you or the narrator is located at the zoo.
The zookeeper could ask the man, please bring the penguins to the zoo.
What's the bring them to the zoo?
Isn't it take them to the zoo?
Dumb jokes.
Besides, it's not bring the penguins to the zoo.
The man isn't at the zoo.
So the correct word grammatically is take the penguins to the zoo.
So I got a lot of comments.
In fact, as I was collecting the comments to put them in this video, when I got to the point where I had 35 comments saying it's take not bring, I kind of stopped collecting them.
And I found it pretty interesting because yes, technically this is a mistake, but let me explain.
You see, there are regional differences with English.
If you live in the UK and you heard me tell those jokes, they probably hurt your ears.
When you heard me use the verb bring instead of the verb take.
But if you live in my part of Canada, it would have sounded completely normal.
Let me read some of the information I found online for you.
It says here.
The regional use of bring versus take generally hinges on whether the speaker adheres to strict directional definition or uses bring more informally.
I use it more informally.
British English strictly distinguishes bring towards the speaker from take away, while some regions in North America frequently use bring for both driven by broader Germanic influences.
And then here we go, some further information.
British English employs a strict distinction.
Bring, movement toward the speaker.
For example, bring that here.
Or take, movement away from the speaker.
For example, I take my children to school.
But, and here's the fun part, some regional North American English, the US and Canada bring is used much more frequently, often replacing take, regardless of direction.
Isn't that crazy?
Usage.
Some Americans and Canadians might say I bring my kids to school focusing on the destination.
Whereas a British speaker would say, I take my kids to school.
So interesting, isn't it?
This is going to sound really, really bad to those of you who are British and speak British English.
Later, I'm going to go to school.
I'm going to bring my gloves to school.
I'm going to bring my lunch to school.
I'm going to bring my phone to school as well.
I'm sure someone is still gonna, in the comments below, mention that that is a mistake to say it that way.
But it brings me to this point.
English is really cool and English changes depending on where you are in the English speaking world.
So no, unlike what one commenter said, I don't think I should stop teaching English on YouTube because I use the verb bring instead of the verb take.
Instead, it's just the flavor of informal English you might hear in some parts of Canada or the United States.
So did I make a mistake?
Well, technically, yes.
And grammatically, yes.
But informally, in my part of the English speaking world, no, not at all.
Technically grammatically, I should have said the police officer wanted him to take the penguins to the zoo.
The man was going to take the penguins to the zoo.
But in my part of the English speaking world if I said I'm going to bring the penguins to the zoo, it would sound totally normal to the people around me.
So who's wrong?
Well, I guess there's the technical, grammatical correct way of saying it and then the informal way of saying it, which is kind of the beauty of the English language, isn't it?
So did I make a mistake?
I guess.
Should I apologize to all of the people who invented the English language?
Probably.
I'm sorry that I used the verb to bring instead of the verb to take.
But hey, if I told the joke again, I would probably tell it the same way.
Anyways, thanks so much for watching this kind of a fun, lighthearted English lesson.
I hope you enjoyed it.
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Give me a thumbs up and leave a comment below.
Maybe you wanna leave a comment about the difference between bring and take.
And I'll see you next week with another English lesson.
Bye.
