[Grammar] gave flowers to her

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englishhobby

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Hello,
I was surprised to read a grammar comment saying that it is wrong to use the indirect object after the direct one in case the indirect object is a pronoun. To make it more visual here's an example:
1) I gave flowers to her - Oxford Grammar book says it's wrong.
2) I gave her the flowers. - correct

I remember that in poetry they use Number One st6ructure as well - "he kept his meaning to himself, but gave a rose to me".
Is Number One really wrong according to accepted rules of grammar, let alone poetry?:?:

Thank you in advance.
 

Tdol

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Which Oxford grammar book is this? I don't agree with this rule- She gave them to me (both pronouns) is fine.
 

5jj

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'I gave her flowers' is usually more natural than 'I gave flowers to her', the second is not wrong.
 

Raymott

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Hello,
I was surprised to read a grammar comment saying that it is wrong to use the indirect object after the direct one in case the indirect object is a pronoun. To make it more visual here's an example:
1) I gave flowers to her - Oxford Grammar book says it's wrong.
2) I gave her the flowers. - correct

I remember that in poetry they use Number One st6ructure as well - "he kept his meaning to himself, but gave a rose to me".
Is Number One really wrong according to accepted rules of grammar, let alone poetry?:?:

Thank you in advance.
Is there any reason you have "the flowers" in 2, and just "flowers" in 1. You're not comparing like sentences.
Anyway, they're both right. You've probably misunderstood the point the book was making.
Without "the", I think 2 would be more common.
With "the", they're both about equally likely.
 

mxreader

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Hello,
I was surprised to read a grammar comment saying that it is wrong to use the indirect object after the direct one in case the indirect object is a pronoun. To make it more visual here's an example:
1) I gave flowers to her - Oxford Grammar book says it's wrong.
2) I gave her the flowers. - correct

I remember that in poetry they use Number One st6ructure as well - "he kept his meaning to himself, but gave a rose to me".
Is Number One really wrong according to accepted rules of grammar, let alone poetry?:?:

Thank you in advance.

To me it looks like

"I gave flowers (Od) to her (Op)" is the prepositional paraphrase of
"I gave her (Oi) flowers (Od)".
 

philo2009

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Hello,
I was surprised to read a grammar comment saying that it is wrong to use the indirect object after the direct one in case the indirect object is a pronoun. To make it more visual here's an example:
1) I gave flowers to her - Oxford Grammar book says it's wrong.

Not wrong at all, though less natural than 2 for a normal, unemphatic utterance.

If, however there were some argument about who the recipient of the flowers actually was, the first would be quite possible:

A: (pointing at girl C) You did give the flowers to her, didn't you?
B: (pointing at girl D) No, I already told you: I gave the flowers to her!!
 

Barb_D

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Perhaps we're looking at the wrong pronoun?

I gave the flowers to the girl.
I gave the girl the flowers.

I gave the flowers to her.
I gave her the flowers.

I gave them to the girl.
I gave the girl them.

I gave them to her.
I gave her them.

Only the two in bold sound wrong to me. Depending on what you need to emphasize, any of the others can be used.

The direct object cannot be replaced by a pronoun and come at the end to sound natural. (I'm not even willing to say wrong -- just unnatural.)

What do others think?
 

5jj

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The direct object cannot be replaced by a pronoun and come at the end to sound natural. (I'm not even willing to say wrong -- just unnatural.
I agree.
 

Raymott

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I gave her them.

Only the two in bold sound wrong to me. Depending on what you need to emphasize, any of the others can be used.

The direct object cannot be replaced by a pronoun and come at the end to sound natural. (I'm not even willing to say wrong -- just unnatural.)

What do others think?
"I gave her them" is possible to me, but "I gave them to her" is preferable.
But what I really think is that we need a reliable quotation of what this Oxford Grammar book actually said.
 

englishhobby

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Thank you very much, all the responses are of great help to me!
 

5jj

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Thank you very much, all the responses are of great help to me!
I am glad we could help. Now could you satisfy our interest by giving us the direct quotation from the Oxford grammar book, please?
 
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