{"id":387,"date":"2008-10-15T12:00:45","date_gmt":"2008-10-15T18:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/blog\/2008\/10\/please-distribute-amongst-your-team\/"},"modified":"2011-05-31T19:18:12","modified_gmt":"2011-06-01T01:18:12","slug":"please-distribute-amongst-your-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/wordpress\/blog\/2008\/10\/please-distribute-amongst-your-team\/","title":{"rendered":"“Please distribute amongst your team.”"},"content":{"rendered":"

I saw this in an email message.<\/p>\n

Problems:<\/strong>
\n1.<\/strong> A direct object is missing.
\n2.<\/strong> The wrong preposition was used.<\/p>\n

Explanation:<\/strong>
\nThe email message included an attached announcement about a reorganization.<\/p>\n

The writer sent the email message to the people near the top of the new organization.<\/p>\n

She wanted to make sure that everyone in the new organization — all Americans — got the news.<\/p>\n

Even if we convert the chiefly British preposition “amongst” to the more common preposition “among”, we still do not have the solution.<\/p>\n

“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”.<\/p>\n

The solution to the first problem is to put the pronoun “this” immediately after the verb “distribute”.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Solution:<\/strong>
\n“Please distribute this to your team.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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