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

[Douglas G. Wilson]

I have no problem with (e.g) "Please roll down the window and hand me
out that flyer which is on the passenger seat." This is parallel to
standard "Hand me up that wrench", etc., etc.

I think the usual "handing out" of flyers is something different: here
"hand out" = "pass out", "give out", distribute".

So I think it is usual to say

He was handing out flyers on the streetcorner.
He was passing out flyers on the streetcorner.
He was giving out flyers on the streetcorner.
He was distrbuting flyers on the streetcorner.

But I don't think it's usual to say (in similar context)

He handed me out a flyer on the streetcorner.
He passed me out a flyer on the streetcorner.
He gave me out a flyer on the streetcorner.
He distributed me a flyer on the streetcorner.

My own notions or intuitions aside, an assertion that such "hand me out
a flyer" is perfectly natural and usual in some large geographic region
doesn't seem to match my crude Google results:

<<"handed me a flyer">>: "about 189,000 hits"

<<"handed me out a flyer">>: 1 hit

Cf.:

<<"handing out flyers">>: "about 5,700,000 hits"

<<"handing people out flyers">>: 0 (zero) hits

<<"handing them out flyers">>: 2 hits

<<"handing us out flyers">>: about 3 distinct hits

Or maybe I've missed something again.

-- Doug Wilson

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