She said to me / she told me

[englishhobby]

1) She said to me he was in hospital.
2) She told me he was in hospital.

Which sentence is more natural? Are they equally frequent?

 

[MikeNewYork]

For me, #2 is more common.

 

[White Hat]

They way I see it, "say to" is mostly used in direct speech.

 

[Rover_KE]

Not according to this analysis.

 

[White Hat]

Not according to this analysis.

I've looked at it. Just can't figure out where it says "direct speech".

 

[Roman55]

I am not a teacher.

Interesting as the Ngram Viewer may be, comparing the frequency of two expressions that are not interchangeable has limited value.

"say to me" may be the only way to express a certain action, and "tell me" the only way to express another.
The fact that the latter is by far the more common of the two (which should come as no surprise to anyone) doesn't invalidate the former.

If you look at this analysis of two similar looking words you will notice a distinct preference for one of them, and there is no meaningful conclusion to be drawn from it.

 

[MikeNewYork]

I've looked at it. Just can't figure out where it says "direct speech".

What does "direct speech" have to do with this?

 

[MikeNewYork]

I disagree. One can, as you did, select two words that have different meanings in different contexts. In that case, I agree with you. But the phrases under consideration don't have the same problem. Ngrams are not perfect, but they are far from meaningless. The issue was not about invalidating either expression, it was about frequency of usage.

The same relationship occurs with the past tense.

 

[White Hat]

What does "direct speech" have to do with this?

Thank you for clearing this up for me. All these years I've been telling my students to use "say to" strictly in direct speech and replace it with "tell" in reported speech. It looks like I've been wrong. I don't know what I would do without this lovely forum. It just makes me want to encourage everyone I know to join it!

 

[emsr2d2]

1. He said "Hello" to me. :tick:
2. He said hello to me. :tick:

3. He told me hello. :cross:

Would you really have told your students to use 3 instead of 2?

 

[White Hat]

No, I mean that I taught them to say "He told me that blah-blah-blah" instead of saying "He said to me that blah-blah-blah".

 

[englishhobby]

1. He said "Hello" to me. :tick:
2. He said hello to me. :tick:

3. He told me hello. :cross:

Would you really have told your students to use 3 instead of 2?

I think this particular example is a bit tricky ;-) (because 'to say hello' is a set phrase, so it can't be used with 'tell' at all). Besides, we are talking about situations with 'say to sb' and 'tell sb', not 'say sth to sb'.

What Bennevis meant is the following:
We can't substitute 'tell sb' with 'say to sb' (and the other way round) in the following sentences:
1) He said to his girlfriend: 'I am going to throw a party.' (direct speech)
2) He told his girlfriend he was going to throw a party. (indirect speech)
Rule (for such cases):
Said - for direct speech only
Told - for indirect speech only
Is it right?
:?:

 

[angelene001]

Thank you for clearing this up for me. All these years I've been telling my students to use "say to" strictly in direct speech and replace it with "tell" in reported speech. It looks like I've been wrong. I don't know what I would do without this lovely forum. It just makes me want to encourage everyone I know to join it!

I was taught the same - "say to somebody" in direct speech and "tell somebody" in reported speech.