Reading this thread I am a bit surprised – in a language forum! – to see so much “prescriptive behaviour”. The first posting relating
brang to the very normal phenomenon of
language development – whether you like such a thing to happen to your own language or not - is #
35:
I don't recall having heard people using brang either, but I'm sure that it's used in American English because it is an entry in Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged, identified as a "substand past of BRING."
The label substand is discussed in the introductory pages of the dictionary:
8.2.2 The stylistic label substand for "substandard" indicates status conforming to a pattern of linguistic usage that exists throughout the American language community but differs in choice of word or form from that of the prestige group in that community.
Orange Blossom(#39) is hinting at the logical explanation of this “uneducated” (#7) verbal form which, according to the same forero, --
CAMullen said:
I haven't heard [...] in decades, but bear in mind that back then, there were people who didn't listen regularly to radio, let alone television, [...]
mplsray(#38) is then reviewing actual usage and
brad243 (#43) is referring to the parallel verbal patterns of
sing and
ring – but nobody is naming the beast...
Should we call it
system pressure?
If a change occurs in a dialect or in sub-standard language it is – or rather
was (especially before the age of television
) – very much a coincidence whether this change will be established in the system. One of the many reasons for change to occur in the first place is the great disparity of the existing system itself. In English we find verbs like:
drink – drank – drunk
ring – rang – rung
sing – sang - sung
stink – stank – stunk
-- and the more “regular” type of conjugation like:
call – called, hear – heard, say – said
--even if the very term “regular” is somehow strange because the
drink type represents a characterictic linguistic feature of all Germanic languages – as much as
drinking has always been a cherished behaviour and indeed, quite an
institution, among its early speakers.
At the end of the day we are all more or less favouring puristic language – simply because we all read. To
hear the form
brang is one thing – to see it written is something very different. Even linguists will be shocked – or perhaps “only” extremely amused – if they should happen to see such a form in, say, J.K. Rowling.
As far as Neil Diamond is concerned – see the link provided by
timpeac(#16)
Song, she sang to me, song she brang to me,
Words that rang in me, rhyme that sprang from me warmed the night.
And what was right became me.
You are the sun, I am the moon,
You are the words, I am the tune, play me.
-- I’d call this usage an artistic licence.
