"They was trying to hand me out a flyer."

[Alice Faber]

On 7/11/11 12:39 PM, Damien Hall wrote:
> What does this sentence mean?  By which I mean, in BrE it would be perfectly acceptable in a meaning like 'They were trying to hand me a handbill advertisement'.  But what was the strangeness that made you post it, Wilson?
>
> - The indirect object pronoun in the midst of a phrasal verb?
>
> - The use of 'flyer' to mean something it doesn't usually mean ('fly-ball'?)
>
> - The use of 'hand out' to mean 'pitch', if 'flyer' does in fact mean 'fly-ball'?
>
> I'm serious - you wouldn't have posted the sentence if it hadn't been somehow strange, but I honestly don't know what strangeness you meant!
>

I'm not Wilson (obviously), but the sequence "hand me out" sounds very
odd to me. (Both "hand out flyers", with no dative, and "hand me flyers"
would be fine.)

--
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Alice Faber                                    faber at haskins.yale.edu
Haskins Laboratories                           tel: (203) 865-6163 x258
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