Pronouns

“… to advise every one of housekeeping items …”

Nouns, Pronouns

I saw this in an email message from a personnel department.

Problem:
The space between “every” and “one” does not belong.

Explanation:
The complete sentence in the email message was “The supervisors will hold a short meeting to advise every one of housekeeping items and scheduling information.”

“Every one” — with a space between “every” and “one” — is a noun phrase that means each person or thing.

An example of the correct use of “every one” (with the space) is “Every one of the plants had turned brown.”

“Everyone” — without the space — is a pronoun that means everybody in a group.

An example of the correct use of “everyone” (without the space) is “Everyone likes an end-of-year bonus.”

Solution:
“… to advise everyone of housekeeping items …”

“Give the money to us!” vs. “Give us the money!”

Prepositions, Pronouns, Versus

I have been contemplating these two imperative constructions for the past several days.

Question:
Are both constructions correct?

Explanation:
The verb “Give” in either construction is the imperative verb.

The phrase “the money” in either construction is the direct object.

The pronoun “us” in either construction is the indirect object.

In other words, the speaker of the sentence is telling the listener to take an action (“Give”) with a direct object (“the money”) on behalf of an indirect object (“us”).

So you might wonder why the preposition “to” is required in one construction and is NOT required in the other construction.

According to the discussion about the dative case in English at Wikipedia, the indirect object of an action does not have to be expressed with a preposition such as “to” or “for”.

In other words, the objective pronoun “us” may immediately follow the main verb and be used in a dative manner, as long as that verb has a direct object, too.

So the preposition “to” in “Give to us the money!” is optional in current English usage.

This gives [to] us the answer to the original question.

Answer:
Yes, both constructions, along with “Give to us the money!”, are correct.

“Please distribute amongst your team.”

Prepositions, Pronouns

I saw this in an email message.

Problems:
1. A direct object is missing.
2. The wrong preposition was used.

Explanation:
The email message included an attached announcement about a reorganization.

The writer sent the email message to the people near the top of the new organization.

She wanted to make sure that everyone in the new organization — all Americans — got the news.

Even if we convert the chiefly British preposition “amongst” to the more common preposition “among”, we still do not have the solution.

“Please distribute among your team.” still has two problems: (1) a direct object is missing; (2) the preposition “among” does not go with the singular noun “team”.

The solution to the first problem is to put the pronoun “this” immediately after the verb “distribute”.

The solution to the second problem is to replace the preposition “among”, which requires three or more parties, with the preposition “to”, which requires a minimum of one party.

Solution:
“Please distribute this to your team.”