Use “brought”.

Brang is bad English and sounds uneducated.

It has been pointed out that Neil Diamond used “brang” in “Play Me” to make his rhyming scheme work. Songs often use improper constructions and words such as “ain’t” in order to keep the rhythm and feelings intact. But that does not make those words correct, and their usage should be avoided in formal writing and speech.

Dialects and regional accents are fine, that’s part of the culture of England and the rest of the english-speaking world, but there’s no excuse for bad grammar. Official english is the language spoken in England. Every teacher of english whether in England, the rest of the UK or abroad has a duty to teach correct grammar. If I visit a country where english is not an official language then I make the effort to learn to speak the local language properly, as spoken by the locals. At first I’ll have a strong english accent and my grammar will be off, but I make the effort to improve. Incidentally when visiting South America I speak spanish as spoken in Spain because that’s the official spanish. Languages do evolve and throughout history there have been branches of languages as they’re taken to distant shores, but all languages have official standards and most have official dictionaries. It’s actually the proper use of a language that in fact helps in understanding each other. Continual incorrect use of a language actually causes confusion. I’ve had loads of experiences where different versions of english have been spoken and different meanings interpreted from them. If it didn’t matter then why would so many english teachers spend so much effort educating us? The whole point of learning something, whether it be english, maths, art or whatever, is so that you can apply it, and generally you learn stuff at school so that it will be helpful to you in work and whatever else you do in life. NB. It’s good to be proud of the fact that english is the most widely spoken language in the world.

That’s because Diamond the songwriter included the word brang in his classic “Play Me.” That song’s initial refrain, “You are the sun/I am the moon/You are the words/I am the tune/Play me,” is followed by this stanza:

Song she sang to me

Song she brang to me

Words that rang in me

Rhyme that sprang from me

Warmed the night.

Ignoring the issue of the preciousness in Diamond’s lyrics (and setting aside the inquiries about just what sort of rhyme has four consecutive lines ending with the word me—the many-faceted songsmith does rely on internal rhyme), we instead defend our decision to refer to brang as a word. We assure you, we’re using word in its sense naming “a speech sound that symbolizes and communicates a meaning”; we are not endorsing its usage.

Nonetheless, brang does appear in the big Unabridged Dictionary. It is defined as the past tense of bring, and is annotated nonstandard, meaning “not conforming in pronunciation, grammatical construction, idiom, or choice of word to the usage generally characteristic of educated native speakers of the language.”

So how do we explain Diamond’s use of that term? Our guess is he was simply playing with language . . . so let’s chalk it up to poetic license.

Questions or comments? Write us at [email protected] Production and research support for Word for the Wise comes from Merriam-Webster, publisher of language reference books and Web sites including Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition.