[Ads-l] Transitive "remind" without "of"
Stanton McCandlish
smccandlish at GMAIL.COM
Sat Oct 26 20:43:18 UTC 2024
> "Please remind me your name"
Is this regional, or a recent development?
I have literally never heard that or anything like it in my life, only seen
a handful of written cases in the last year or so, like "to remind people
the power of voting".
This pattern ("remind X Y", where Y is any given noun phrase) seems clearly
distinct from conventional of-less forms:
- "remind X [not] to Y"
- "remind X wh* Y" (what, when, where, which, who, whose, why)
- "remind X how Y"
- "remind X that Y" ("That" can be dropped in a construction in which it
has become optional/understood: "Remind Janet [that] her appointment is
tomorrow", "Remind him [that] the test is not optional".)
- "remind X in/on/by Y" where Y is a time/place ("Remind me in an hour",
"Remind him in Dallas" e.g. during a road trip, "Remind them on Tuesday",
"Remind us by next week". Preposition only sometimes droppable: "Remind
them Tuesday", "Remind us next week", but not *"Remind me an hour" or
*"Remind him Dallas".)
- "remind X Y", where Y is temporal adverb[ial phrase] or one
descriptive of manner ("Remind me soon", "Remind him patiently but firmly")
- "remind X Z Y", where Z is a complex, more precise, but potentially
stilted replacement of one of the above ("remind X by what means Y" or
"remind X in what way Y" for "remind X how Y"; "remind X by what time Y"
for "remind X when Y"; etc.)
- "remind X", alone ("Remind him." Can take adverbial and parenthetical
additions: "Remind him soon", "Remind him, over there".)
Maybe there's another sort I'm forgetting.
But "Remind X Y" where Y is a random noun phrase seems both very rare and
very recent. I would think it is apt to be taken by most speakers (maybe
only after a certain generational line?) as non-standard, perhaps as an
accidental error, or a foreignism (like dropped noun/pronoun referent in
"This feature allows to download more quickly", which is entering English
by way of both German and some South Asian languages), or some kind of
Internet/SMS slang (like "Because reasons").
Is there a region or subculture in which something like "Remind him the
imporance of punctuality" is actually normative?
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