# Give me it



## tenseconds

Hi I was wondering, is it correct in English to say "give me it"/"tell me it", (osea dámelo, dígamelo) etc. or can you only say give it to me, tell it to me.  Thanks!


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## verismo21

Both are fine and mean the same thing. Gramatically, the former examples are employing "me" as an Indirect Object Pronoun and the latter examples are utilizing "me" as an Object of a Preposition.


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## roxcyn

Los dos tienen sentido


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## Basenjigirl

_Give me it._...you usually hear this construction when someone is angry or upset. It reminds me of the way children speak. 

"Give it to me" is the standard construction and is usually what is said.


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## lazarus1907

Yo no hablo inglés perfectamente, pero yo habría dicho "give it to me". Por cierto, es curioso que sea correcto "Give me that" pero que no suene bien decir "Give me it". ¿Alguien sabe por qué?


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## elpoderoso

Tambien , algunas personas omiten "to'' y decir ''give it me''


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## Don Esteban

Quería añadir algo sobre "dígamelo".  No es "tell it to me" sino "tell me".  

Concuerdo con Basenjigirl sobre la frase "give me it", suena cómo un niño gritando por un jugete, o cómo dicen en la RD "un niño que tiene gadéjo!!"  (ganas de joder)


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## sound shift

"Give me it" is used in some parts of the UK (and not just by children) but not in others.


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## trevorb

From my UK perspective, 'give me it' is perfectly normal English and doesn't carry any particular overtones - apart from the fact that it is, of course, a bare imperative and may therefore sound a little brusque.

But what do people think of the construction elpoderoso mentions: give it me?

At the risk of sounding prescriptive, I would have said that this was gramatically incorrect. However, I have seen it used in a respectable Spanish text book from the 1950s when I wouldn't have expected regionalisms to be common in print.

Within my family, it turns out, there is some disagreement: I am happy with 'give me it' but not 'give it me'; my wife uses 'give it me'; and my sister says she would only use 'give it to me'.

What do other native speakers think? Does anyone have any gramatical authorities they can quote? And is there accepted regional variation? I'm fairly sure my wife's usage is from growing up on Merseyside - although she claims she's picked up in York (where we no live).


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## Xewells

Here's how it sounds to me:

Give me it-- In impolite construction of the phrase but perfectly acceptable grammatically.

Give it to me-- A more polite saying also grammatically correct.

Give me it-- This one throws me. Being a native of the States, I've never it said this way. To me it sounds grammatically incorrect. And from looking at it, to me, it means 'give me to it.' I'm sure this is accepted in the UK as a colloquialism, but not so much in the US.


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## Loob

See also this thread


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## trevorb

Thanks, Loob. That's a really interesting quote from the Longman grammar. 

Xewells, I'd say that 'give it me' is understood in the UK but I agree that it's counter-intuitive and, personally, I don't find it 'acceptable'!

Cheers,

Trevor.


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## mazbook

From my viewpoint—U.S. English—both "give me it" and "give it me" sound terrible and ungrammatic.  I have *never* heard any native speaker of U.S. English use these forms.  Both would immediately cause me to think, "Non-native English speaker."

"Give me *that*!" or "Give it *to* me." would be the only forms I would consider correct.  The same for "Tell me..." except that "Tell it to me." would be considered non-standard by most native English speakers in the U.S.  Simply "Tell me!" would be by far the most common standard usage.

Saludos desde Mazatlán


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## trevorb

Interesting, mazbook. I think "Tell me!" would be most natural on this side of the pond too.


Here's Geoff Pullum, Professor of Linguistics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and co-author of The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language while being interviewed in Australia on 'universal grammar':some British speakers of standard English regard ‘give it me’ as grammatical, along with ‘give me it’, which I think all speakers accept.​Presumably, he's referring to 'all speakers' of British English (of which he is one) - although I didn't read it that way at first.

If you're interested, the transcription is at http://www.abc.net.au/rn/arts/ling/stories/s750150.htm

And this (TEFL material?), which sounds American to my ears but could be Canadian, supports the US contention that 'give me it' is seen over there as both rare and abrupt: http://www.eslgold.com/images/gr_ind_obj.mp3 ('give me it' is about 30 seconds in)

I suppose, the answer for non-native speakers is just to go for 'give it to me', which I suspect was the advice somewhere near the beginning of the thread!


Trevor.


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## rhiannonhelen

trevorb said:


> From my UK perspective, 'give me it' is perfectly normal English and doesn't carry any particular overtones - apart from the fact that it is, of course, a bare imperative and may therefore sound a little brusque.
> 
> But what do people think of the construction elpoderoso mentions: give it me?
> 
> At the risk of sounding prescriptive, I would have said that this was gramatically incorrect. However, I have seen it used in a respectable Spanish text book from the 1950s when I wouldn't have expected regionalisms to be common in print.
> 
> Within my family, it turns out, there is some disagreement: I am happy with 'give me it' but not 'give it me'; my wife uses 'give it me'; and my sister says she would only use 'give it to me'.
> 
> What do other native speakers think? Does anyone have any gramatical authorities they can quote? And is there accepted regional variation? I'm fairly sure my wife's usage is from growing up on Merseyside - although she claims she's picked up in York (where we no live).


 
I despise the phrase "give it me" and only heard it when I moved to Gloucestershire from London, so that suggests regional variation.  It just sounds awful! I can't help myself correcting people!


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## Loob

rhiannonhelen said:


> I despise the phrase "give it me" and only heard it when I moved to Gloucestershire from London, so that suggests regional variation. It just sounds awful! I can't help myself correcting people!


 
Actually, I suspect it's an older construction that may have survived in some regional varieties of English.  I still remember, many years ago, hearing a rather posh English teacher using "give it me" to the great surprise of 30 Somerset-bred 11-year olds... 

By the way, rhiannonhelen, I now live about 10 miles away from you!

Loob


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## mazbook

Hola trevorb:

Your first link was interesting but the second one is great!  I've been looking for a website like this for a long time.  The explanations are clear and the pronunciations are too.  I'm going to introduce this to my kids—7, 9, 15 and 17—who are all students of English as a second language...OH, my wife too. 

The little that I listened to sounded American rather than Canadian to me also, and I'm pretty familiar with Canadian, as there are lots of Canucks visiting here in Mazatlán.  The only time I can't really tell immediately is when a Canadian is from Vancouver, British Columbia.  If they grew up there, they sound almost indistinguishable from west coast Americans.

Saludos desde Mazatlán


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## profe105

mazbook said:


> From my viewpoint—U.S. English—both "give me it" and "give it me" sound terrible and ungrammatic. I have *never* heard any native speaker of U.S. English use these forms. Both would immediately cause me to think, "Non-native English speaker."
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I find this thread interesting.  While I've never heard anyone in the U.S. say _give it me,_ I have heard and said _give me it_.  In fact, I just said it this morning to a student who was refusing to hand over his iPod!  The first time, I said, "Please give me your iPod."  When he refused, I said, "Give me it, or I'll write you up."
> 
> I don't know if it's technically grammatically correct, but I hear it and say it all the time.  I am a well-educated native speaker of English.


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## Loob

I second the point about the usefulness of TrevorB's links: thank you Trevor!

And (as I think I may have said before) I concur with the general advice to stick with "give it to me". You can't go wrong with this, whether in formal or informal English.

Loob


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## mazbook

profe105, I *do* agree that "Give me it...!" in the imperative and *in context*, as you have put it, is quite acceptable and normal English usage.  I hadn't thought of this particular case since when I use this sort of imperative it tends to be with my kids and in Spanish. 

Saludos desde Mazatlán


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## tenseconds

Thanks alot for your help guys!  And if you are saying it not as a command, for example he told me it, is that wrong?


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## mazbook

Hola tenseconds:

I would consider it completely wrong...in U.S. English.  It _*may*_ be correct in some British dialects of English.

Saludos desde Mazatlán


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## Xewells

In that instance, I would say "He told me"


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## Loob

I find it easier to think about this in the context of a longer phrase, such as "he told me it in confidence" = _he told me the story in confidence._

I would say that exactly the same same arguments apply as with "give" + Indirect Object + Direct Object.

"He told it to me in confidence": _universally acceptable, in speech and writing;_

"He told me it in confidence": _OK in conversation in BrE; ?AmE usage varies?_

"He told it me in confidence": _rare in BrE; ?AmE not used?_

I've put question marks round the AmE part of the last two, because I've simply extrapolated from the earlier part of the discussion, and I may have done so incorrectly ...

Anyway, my recommendation goes again to _'verb - Direct Object - to - Indirect Object'_ ("He told it to me") as by far the safest option 

Loob


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## vince

In case you were wondering about the general structure, the following phrases are equivalent:

I gave my sister the book
I gave the book to my sister

I sent my teacher a letter
I sent a letter to my teacher


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## tiab

ungrammatic 
does that mean grammatically incorrect?


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## Soy Yo

I believe that in the U.S. we tend to say "Give it to me." The other versions sound a bit off? Are they correct? I don't know. "Give me it!" or "Gimme it!" is certainly something associated with "child speech." And frankly, though I can't swear I ever heard it, "Give it me" doesn't sound any worse than "Give me it." Maybe I've watched too much "Masterpiece Theatre".

I also follow the "He told it to me" pattern, but "He told me" ("He told me so") is less cumbersome.

Example in which "it" is needed:  "Do you know the story of the three little pigs?" "Yes, my father told it to me at bedtime when I was a kid."

Very interesting and thanks to everyone for his/her/their input!


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## pozzo

Soy Yo said:


> I believe that in the U.S. we tend to say "Give it to me."


I agree completely.  Same thing in Canada.


Soy Yo said:


> The other versions sound a bit off? Are they correct? I don't know. "Give me it!" or "Gimme it!" is certainly something associated with "child speech."


Once again I agree completely.  Same thing in Canada.

To my ear "give it me" sounds completely incorrect whereas  "give me it" sounds like something that has an okay grammatical structure but is not flattering to the speaker, maybe because, as Soy Yo points out, it sounds kind of like you're saying "gimme".   Having said that, if I was in unfamiliar territory and expecting things to be phrased slightly differently, "give me it" would not come as a shock whereas I think "give it me" would be more unusual.  It would seem kind of like saying "talk me" instead of "talk to me".  But I guess if the "to" is obvious anyway, then maybe it could be considered redundant and somewhere it would work its way out of speech.


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