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Wangqh2696122 Posted 14 years ago
Grammar

Is the sentence grammatically correct?

John has really got the job because he showed me the official letter offering him it.
  

Top answer

John didn't get the job because he showed you the letter. I know John really got the job, because he showed me the official letter offering him it. I used a comma to prevent confusion.

  • John didn't get the job because he showed you the letter.
  • I know John really got the job, because he showed me the official letter offering him it.
  • I used a comma to prevent confusion.
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6 Answers
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John didn't get the job because he showed you the letter.

I know John really got the job, because he showed me the official letter offering him it.


I used a comma to prevent confusion.
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Here is a small grammatical change.

John has really got the job because he showed me the official letter offering it to him.


But the sentence implies that the reason he got the job is because he showed the letter. That does not make much sense.
The sentence would be better if you write it in one of these ways:

I know that John really got the jo
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Wonderful explanation!Now I'd like to shift my focus: why do you think "offering it to him" is better than "offering him it"?
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wangqh2696122why do you think "offering it to him" is better than "offering him it"?
Because I'm a native speaker, and that's the way I would say it. The other way sounds odd.

If you had a noun for the direct object, then that would be a different story.
But with two pronouns, the to-phrase form of the indirect object is the right choice.
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wangqh2696122why do you think "offering it to him" is better than "offering him it"?
We almost always rephrase it when the sentence ends in "him it", "her it", "me it", "us it", "you it", of "them it".

These become "it to him", "it to her", "it to me", and so on -- sometimes "it for him", "it for her", "it for me", and so on.

They sent us th

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