Jj is for Jottings 134.  Word Confusions: Bought/Brought; In a Moment/Momentarily.

In this article I want to concentrate on word confusions: Bought/Brought; and In a Moment/Momentarily.  I said in my first article on word confusions that I would write about other word confusions from time to time.  (And I freely admitted that ton/tonne was a somewhat unusual choice for a first article. But I received a very complimentary comment on my blog from a transport company who appreciated the article.  They said how vital it was in their line of business and that the distinction was underappreciated.  I was similarly complimentary to an oblivious news reporter on television the other night when she pronounced “tonne” correctly. It makes a pleasant change from berating them about their errors.)  Anyway – to the topics in hand…

WORD CONFUSION: BOUGHT/BROUGHT.

This is one of the most common errors one hears in conversation, and can be dealt with very quickly.

Bought is the past tense and past participle of the verb to buy, which means “to obtain something by paying money for it.”  An example: “We went to the animal shelter and bought a rescue dog.”

Here is how we conjugate the verb “to buy”.

Present tense: I buy; you buy; he/she/it buys; we buy; they buy.

Simple past tense: I bought; you bought; he/she/it bought; we bought; they bought.

Brought is the past tense and past participle of the verb to bring, which means “to carry someone or something to a place or person.”  Example: “And then we brought the rescue dog home to meet our other pets.”

Here is how we conjugate the verb “to bring”.

Present tense: I bring, you bring; he/she/it brings; we bring; they bring.

Simple past tense: I brought; you brought; he/she/it brought; we brought; they brought.

Bought implies an economic transaction; brought implies the transport of something or someone.

And here is the really easy way to remember which past tense belongs to which verb: buy/bought don’t have /r/ in them; bring/brought do.  So the two with /r/ in belong together, and the two without /r/ belong together.

It is possible that not listening properly to the sounds in the words could be the root cause of the problem in the first place, for some people.  Or it could also be the result of hearing loss.

WORD CONFUSION: IN A MOMENT/MOMENTARILY.

I have read and heard so many people use “momentarily’ instead of “in a moment” recently.  As far as I was/am concerned “momentarily” means “for a moment”, and “in a moment” means “very soon”.  (Perhaps different for the child of a parent who meets a friend in the street and begins a conversation, saying she’s coming “in a moment”.  That might turn out to mean “in an hour”.  And if it isn’t actually an hour, it will certainly feel like it to the bored child who has no interest whatsoever in the adult conversation.)

Examples of “momentarily” in my world are:

• I was momentarily taken aback, but then I realised it was a joke.
• A spider crawling up the windscreen momentarily distracted him and he nearly drove off the road.

So if you are told that the doctor will see you “momentarily” you wonder how you can possible explain all your symptoms and get a considered diagnosis in such a short space of time.

A bit of research informs me that using “momentarily” to mean “in a moment” as well as “for a moment” is common usage in American English.  So American readers will wonder why on earth I brought (not bought!) it up in the first place.  However, to speakers of British English (which often includes Australians), “momentarily” will always mean “for a moment”.  There will always be a momentary (!) brain glitch while one computes the intended meaning.

Not Really Word Confusion After All.

So it seems that, in this instance, it is not a matter of word confusion as such, but cultural differences in the way we use words.  But I have to say I do think that the British English use is less open to confusion because there is a clear distinction between “in a moment” and “momentarily”.  But maybe that’s just because that is what I’m used to.

VOCABULARY AND WORD CONFUSIONS.

Of course, words and their meanings all come under the umbrella of vocabulary, and therefore any confusion about words also comes into that category.  Homonyms, heteronyms and homophones can all be great sources of confusion, as discussed in the previous article.  The richness of the English language, and the fact that it has borrowed from so many other languages, makes it a particularly fertile breeding ground for word confusions.  But also a great source of interest and fun!

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