118
votes
"He borrowed me some money."; right or wrong?
You could, in theory, however it would only cause confusion in my opinion. For the sake of clarity, I would go with "he borrowed some money for me."
- 891
53
votes
Accepted
"He borrowed me some money."; right or wrong?
Yes, in the proper context, that is grammatical. It would mean that he borrowed money on your behalf. It is colloquial, not formal. The use of such 'ethical dative' constructions is regional.
I ...
- 121k
46
votes
Why can't you say "A doll was made me by my sister"?
For some reason, English allows you
to turn a prepositional phrase (“My sister made a doll for me”) into an indirect object (“My sister made me a doll”), called a dative shift, or
to turn an active-...
- 6,426
43
votes
What does "I made him a cake" mean?
Your interpretation 1 is correct - I made him a cake means the same as I made a cake for him. This is indeed a common construction in English, and would generally be understood.
There is a subtle ...
- 5,600
26
votes
What does "I made him a cake" mean?
In English, you will commonly encounter sentences of the form: Subject - Verb - Indirect Object - Direct Object, where the direct object (cake/warning/present) describes "on what" the verb is acting ...
- 608
17
votes
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Is it right that "to adults" is obligatory as in "I taught English to adults"?
"I taught English" is a complete, correct sentence. "I taught English to adults" is also a complete, correct sentence.
Native speakers of English are likely to understand "I ...
- 1,233
15
votes
"He borrowed me some money."; right or wrong?
Wiktionary says:
(double transitive) To temporarily obtain (something) for (someone).
Quotations
1681 “Trial of Sir Miles Stapleton”, in State Trials, 33 Charles II, page 516:
Yes,...
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14
votes
Is it right that "to adults" is obligatory as in "I taught English to adults"?
If a verb requires a subject or a direction then you must include it otherwise the sentence is not complete, for example:
"She put the dish..."
This is not correct because there is no direction ...
- 96.3k
14
votes
Why can't you say "A doll was made me by my sister"?
Syntactic restrictions on distransitive passivization:
Why you can be baked a cake yet a cake can never be baked you
Collins Dictionary notes, with formatting emphasis added by me:
If the indirect ...
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7
votes
"He borrowed me some money."; right or wrong?
The shortest way (I can come up with) for saying someone who has borrowed money from another person or entity in order to lend it to a third party would be the following
He borrowed money to ...
- 26.2k
6
votes
Accepted
When should I use: me or to me?
Some verbs take "to" as preposition. It depends on the position of direct and indirect object in the sentence:
For example:
Give me the book.
"the book" is the direct object of "give", and "me" ...
- 8,869
6
votes
When should I use: me or to me?
"Answer me" means "give me an answer" (or "say something".)
"Answer to me" is quite different, and means "Report [answer] to me and no one else":
Remember: you answer to me and no one else.
"Love ...
- 6,536
6
votes
Relative pronoun "whom" used as an indirect object of a verb with two objects
(A small issue that doesn't relate to the grammaticality: it seems unnatural to me to use a defining relative clause after a proper noun, at least in this particular sentence. So I'm going to use ...
- 7,038
6
votes
Accepted
I'm gonna listen it or I'm gonna TO listen it?
gonna = going to.
If you use the second one, you'll say I'm going to to listen it.
But you need to use listen to, so you get
I'm gonna listen to it.
- 3,889
6
votes
What does "I made him a cake" mean?
Some verbs, (known as ditransitive) have both a direct and an indirect object, which can be expressed either way round; but if the direct object comes first, the indirect requires its preposition "to":...
- 73.7k
5
votes
'lose your money' or 'lose money for you'
When we use the verb win, for example, it often takes an Indirect Object and a Direct Object:
It will win [you] [money].
Here, the Indirect Object, you, represents the person who is going to get ...
5
votes
Accepted
"We met the students whom you taught English." Versus "We met the students whom you taught English to."
First, the “who/whom” distinction has just about disappeared in spoken American English except among very careful users. (I do not know about British English.)
Second, let’s start with direct and ...
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4
votes
Accepted
'lose your money' or 'lose money for you'
The game will
lose money for you
means that by playing the game, by way of the game you lose your money. Only by you playing the game do you lose money. No play, no loss.
In other words, only ...
- 66.2k
4
votes
Accepted
Post to/for_the difference?
They can mean significantly different things:
I'll post those letters for you.
This can be slightly ambiguous... while it can mean the same as "to you", it can also mean that you are volunteering ...
- 25.4k
4
votes
Accepted
"Asking the driver" or "Asking to the driver"?
The correct one is just 'ask'; 'ask to' is not grammatical.
There is also a usage 'ask of' - it's formal and a bit archaic, and basically means 'please'. "I would ask of you that you show some ...
- 5,126
4
votes
Accepted
determining indirect object pronoun
To make it easier to see the issue, let's remove two words, although and not from your phrase.
"I show it to you."
Now it is easy to see that it is the direct object (answering the question "what is ...
- 1,850
4
votes
"He borrowed me some money."; right or wrong?
I think it's gramatically OK, but I'd avoid using it.
I've heard it used colloquially (Black Country, UK), but it had/has a slightly different meaning to the one I think you mean. In that "He ...
- 149
4
votes
Accepted
"Give him it"/"Give it to him" vs. "Give John it"/"Give it to John"
Its correct, but as Kate says "awkward".
The problem seems to be one of "end weight". Fluent English sentences tend to put longer structures at the end.
Give John the book.
This follows this ...
- 204k
4
votes
Accepted
Usage of "paid" and "paid for"
The verb paid takes objects that are the method of payment: credit cards, cash, seashells, etc. You could say "The money has already been paid."
The verb paid for takes objects that are the ...
- 21k
3
votes
Accepted
Does **accomplish** have an object in the following sentence?
I suggest what is the object of to accomplish
what economic policies are able to accomplish
economic policies are able to accomplish what?
- 7,568
3
votes
Accepted
offer him of offer to him? lent him or lent to him?
In both of these examples, him can be use either as an indirect object, which is placed between the verb and the object:
1) I offered him a job.
or as part of a to-prepositional phrase, which is ...
- 59.1k
3
votes
offer him of offer to him? lent him or lent to him?
This is known as dative shift. Not all verbs can be alternated like this, but for those that can, the meanings are equivalent. You may depending on context hear one version more often than the other.
- 4,485
3
votes
About the object of a verb followed by "to"
In the sentence:
I sang Mary a song
The first Object, Mary, is the Indirect Object—the person that 'gets' the song. The phrase a song is the Direct Object—the thing being given. If we ...
3
votes
'lose your money' or 'lose money for you'
We have a saying in English: “to be a money-losing proposition”. No matter what you do, you will consistently lose your money in the venture. That seems to be the case here. I assume it’s Roulette, or ...
3
votes
Can "describe" take two objects?
I would only consider option 1 to be standard usage.
Certain verbs take both a direct (in your example, "the situation") and indirect ("me") object, and are known as "...
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