A while ago I had people arguing with me that the word “is” means basically the same thing as the word “was” and that I was being pedantic by saying it didn’t.

It’s a noble fight, but a losing one. Language changes so fast and since common people make common usage, we’re bound to shift over time to something truly incomprehensible like actual Old English is to what we speak today.

Witan þæt, in sooth, þæt wisdom of ealde tunges is of great worth, forsooth. Þæt tongue, fram eallra yore, hath been a vessel for þe heah wisdom of our forebears, and to hold fast to þe staþolfæstness of grammar and wordcraft is to keep þe richnesse of þe auncient lores alive. By þe seofonfold strength of prescriptive ways, we becomen keepers of þe pure tongue, untainted by þe waning of times and þe unstedfast weathers of speech, þereby granting us þe true understanding of ealdan wisdom and þe right ways of our folk.

I’m literally always saying this.

A fact is an observation made in nature. At 8:40 PM PDT I read from my kitchen thermometer 73°F. One datum.

So often people use the term fact to suggest something is true, e.g. Gravity is a scientific fact. It’s an easily demonstqble phenomenon. There’s a mathematical law that predicts the interval of falling bodies. You can make and present facts that demonstrate the consistency of gravity, but it isn’t a single fact in itself.

Same goes for “literally” as “metaphorically.”

And the hill I will die on is the word “bring.”

You’re not “bringing” anything anywhere unless it’s exactly from anywhere else to where you are right now.

You “take” things with you elsewhere, you don’t “bring” them elsewhere.