give him a hand

Question

Can I say,(i)When the tiger came, none of the villagers came and gave him a hand / ... came to give him a hand.(ii) When the tiger came, none of the villagers came and gave a hand to / for him.

Avangi · Accepted Answer

The tiger is a person, right?

(i) is quite natural.

(ii) is a bit awkward

Jamery · Answer

tiger?

where?

in the Zoo.ha ha... a joke.

Philip · Answer

In either sentence, it should be 'came to give him a hand'.

Khoff · Answer

The tiger is not a person, nor is it in the zoo. If you happened to read all of Vincent's posts from the last few days and piece them together, you would get a story similar to the English fable of "The boy who cried wolf." The goatherd plays a trick on the villagers by claiming to see a tiger. Then, when a tiger really does come, the villagers do not come help the boy because they think it is another trick.

Vincent -- when you have several sentences that all go together, like all these about the goatherd and the tiger, it would help to put them all in the same post so people understand the context. Without any context, we don't know who the "him" in your sentence refers to -- it sounds as if it refers to the tiger.

About "to give him a hand" -- I don't think it works very well here. To give someone a hand is to help them in a simple, casual way. You give someone a hand carrying a heavy box -- not saving a herd of goats from a tiger. You could say,

"No one came to help him" or "No one came to his aid."

give him a hand

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