[Grammar] to give you it

[sitifan]

mooch /muːtʃ/ verb [transitive] American English informal to get something by asking someone to give you it, instead of paying for it SYN scrounge British English
https://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/mooch

Is the phrase "to give it to you" more idiomatic than the phrase "to give you it" in the above passage?

 

[jutfrank]

More idiomatic? What exactly do you mean by 'idiomatic'? More colloquial?

 

[sitifan]

More idiomatic? What exactly do you mean by 'idiomatic'? More colloquial?

I mean "more natural." In fact, I was taught by a Taiwanese teacher of English that the combination "to give + personal pronoun + it" is incorrect.

 

[emsr2d2]

I mean "more natural." In fact, I was taught by a Taiwanese teacher of English that the combination "to give + personal pronoun + it" is incorrect.

That teacher was wrong.

 

[sitifan]

"Give me it" sounds very odd in Standard English, but so does "give it me". If you want to be on the safe side, I would go with "give it to me".
https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/9305/is-it-incorrect-to-say-give-me-it

Do native speakers agree with the above opinion?

 

[GoesStation]

Give you it is not very natural in American English — as you noted, we prefer the wordier give it to you. I often see the former construction used in the British variety, though.

 

[jutfrank]

I'm very interested to learn that there's a variety difference here.

I can confirm that give + pronoun + it is very natural in all kinds of British English that I'm aware of. It is more much colloquial than give it to + pronoun, however, and so I wouldn't encourage learners to use it, generally speaking.