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Which of the following expressions is correct?

Explain me.

Explain to me.

I know that explain it to me is correct, but I want to know which one of the above is valid.

apaderno
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Mehper C. Palavuzlar
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6 Answers6

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Explain is normally monotransitive in that it typically occurs only with a single direct object, as in ‘I will now explain the mysteries of the universe.’ If we want to reveal who is to be the beneficiary of such wisdom, we must use a preposition phrase and say ‘I will now explain the mysteries of the universe to the assembled throng.’

It follows that the sentence ‘Explain me’ can, in most contexts, only, and most improbably, be an invitation to elaborate on the speaker’s personality in such a way that we will all better understand the speaker's behaviour. ‘Explain to me’, on the other hand, requires a direct object, such as ‘the mysteries of the universe’, to make any sense. There may be some circumstances in which to is omitted, making the pronoun an indirect object, but in contemporary English they are not numerous.

Barrie England
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  • I don't think the word monotransitive explains anything - all it means is the verb usually has a single object being explained. That's true of more "typical" monotransitive verbs like bite, buy, break, eat, but explain is more like give, show, lend, which often have a "secondary" object - and don't necessarily have any preposition in common usage. – FumbleFingers Dec 13 '11 at 13:25
  • @FumbleFingers: Done in some haste, so I'll edit my answer if you can give an example of 'explain' occurring with a direct and indirect object. – Barrie England Dec 13 '11 at 13:35
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    Erm... explain me that? – FumbleFingers Dec 13 '11 at 13:39
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    Jonathan Swift wrote to Sheridan "If your worship will please to explain me this rebus", suggesting explain can be ditransitive. – Henry Dec 13 '11 at 13:44
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    @FumbleFingers: Weasel words now inserted. – Barrie England Dec 13 '11 at 13:46
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    @Barrie England: Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying your summary of common usage is incorrect - of course you're right that we normally prefix the "secondary object" (those receiving the explanation) with "to". I just think it's a bit circular to say that's because the word is monotransitive. It seems more accurate to me to just say we normally use it monotransitively - but that doesn't have to be the case, and there are plenty of similar verbs where we habitually drop the preposition. – FumbleFingers Dec 13 '11 at 15:08
  • In English, the direct objective of a verb normally follows the verb immediately, or with intervening adverbs. An indirect object is prefixed with "to". So "Explain the universe to me" is a request that the universe be explained, with the person who is hearing the explanation is me. "Explain me to the universe" would be a request to help the universe understand me. There are some limited exceptions to this general rule, like "give me the book" is an acceptable alternative to "give the book to me". – Jay Dec 13 '11 at 17:04
  • how about riddle me this? – Kalpesh Soni Mar 22 '18 at 19:48
19

Dear Dr. Freud,

I am having an identity crisis. I no longer understand myself.
I would like to book an appointment with you so that you can explain me to myself.

yours sincerely,
Mr. Smith

Or

Child: do you like my picture?
Parent: It's lovely! Why don't you explain to me what it is?

It appears to depend on the context.

Explain is a transitive verb (it take an object), so you can say "please explain cartography", or "explain apples", etc. It is also a ditransitive* verb, so it can take two objects,

e.g.

explain to the tree what it is

object 1: the tree
object 2: it

explain to him how to do it

object 1: him
object 2: it

Which is just like how you might use show

show [to] me what it is

vs.

show what it is to me

*Thanks to FumbleFingers for the info

Matt E. Эллен
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    Logically I'd have been happier if the technical term for this kind of verb was trivalent (it can apply to up to three "things" at once - the one doing it, what's being done, and who it's done to). But in fact they're ditransitive verbs, in that they can have two "objects" as well as a "subject". – FumbleFingers Dec 13 '11 at 16:50
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    I think that show, for example, is just as much "ditransitive" as explain. And in your example, show him how to do it would be universally acceptable as an alternative to explain to him how to do it. In the end I think it largely comes down to idiomatic usage. – FumbleFingers Dec 13 '11 at 22:52
  • In some dialects or speaker-groups, there is occasionally the usage: "Now, explain me this!" followed by a question. It is considered incorrect by practically any grammarian or English teacher, but it is still sometimes used by native speakers of English. – Nathan Ellenfield Dec 22 '11 at 13:15
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vMO3XmNXe4#t=13 Now I'd like to do a parody where Neo puts Morpheus on display. – NiteCyper Aug 11 '14 at 10:55
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"Explain me" in the context you probably are thinking of, would be pidgin English.

The only way it would make sense if it meant that "me" was the thing you want explained. "Explain mathematics", "Explain cars", "Explain me".

"Explain to me" is perfectly fine, either as part of a sentence...

Explain to me why you did that.

... or with the rest of the sentence provided by context.

I don't understand why you did that. Explain to me.

slim
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  • I think "pidgin" is a bit extreme. The author (Dame) Rebecca West surely counts as a competent speaker, yet she was happy to write Now will you explain me that? – FumbleFingers Dec 13 '11 at 18:19
  • "Explain me that" is different again, I would suggest. "That" being the subject of the sentence; yet still it sounds wrong. In a book such as that, it sounds archaic. In the mouth of a foreign tourist, it sounds pidgin. – slim Dec 13 '11 at 18:27
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    No, "that" isn't the subject - it's the "primary object", if you will (as opposed to the "secondary object" me, which could validly be omitted). The subject is "you". – FumbleFingers Dec 13 '11 at 22:23
  • Yes, apologies. But it is a re-ordered version of "Explain that to me" (where the to has just popped in there again) – slim Dec 14 '11 at 15:10
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    You seem to imply "Explain that to me" is somehow the "original, underlying" sentence, but that simply isn't so. I'm sure "Show me that" is far more common than "Show that to me", for example, but neither version is any more "basic" than the other. It's just that with "show" we discard the preposition in one version, but with "explain" most people want to keep it in both versions. – FumbleFingers Dec 14 '11 at 17:19
  • @FumbleFingers that is a great comment. I have noticed the prevalence of "explain me" from non-native English speakers, which I had thought to be ungrammatical. If people are saying that, then it should be OK because language evolves. But... what will happen with the also much used "your going to Brighton" ...? – Weather Vane Oct 26 '17 at 19:37
  • @Weather Vane: My guess is that constructions like In retrospect, your going* to Brighton wasn't such a good idea after all* will gradually fall into disuse (being supplanted by *...you going...). It may be relevant to note that in many contexts the relevant (simple or possessive) pronoun would often be omitted anyway, giving In retrospect, going to Brighton wasn't such a good idea,* since it would usually be contextually obvious who made the unwise decision to go to Brighton (me, you, or someone else we're talking about). – FumbleFingers Oct 27 '17 at 17:41
  • @FumbleFingers nice twist, I am sure you know I meant the contraction of you're to your which is commonplace on social media. – Weather Vane Oct 27 '17 at 17:44
  • @Weather Vane: Actually, the fact that many people genuinely don't know when to write *your / its* (as opposed to *you're / it's) really annoys me, but I never thought of that when writing my earlier comment. Typos I can forgive, but if people don't even know* such things I think they should spend more time on English Language Learners, whether they're native speakers or not. Illiteracy reflects badly on society as a whole, and I refuse to believe many people are simply too dumb to learn such things - it's like they're almost wilfully ignorant. – FumbleFingers Oct 27 '17 at 18:36
  • @FumbleFingers there are people empowered by social media who never had much practice with "the three Rs" and neither know nor care about the difference between could've and could of, etc., because to a listener they are identical. I don't think it is so much wilful ignorance, but peer pressure in the social group to comform. Most people see themself to be the norm, and anyone who knows more might be "posh", and so getting eddicated will push them away from their group. So I believe the resistance is not necessarily wilful, but perhaps natural. – Weather Vane Oct 27 '17 at 20:24
  • @Weather Vane: I certainly don't object to things like your "eddicated" there. But considering how many hours every native Anglophone child spends in English lessons (primarily learning to read & write, since they all speak & hear their own native language perfectly well), I can't see that the *it/it's* distinction should be too much for anyone. And as for *your/you're* - it just doesn't seem possible to me that so many native speakers could fail to make the connection between *you're* and *you are*, because that's essentially derived from speech anyway, – FumbleFingers Oct 28 '17 at 17:40
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The meaning of "correct" here is a bit slippery. People usually say explain to me...

enter image description here

I don't think the word "to" is either grammatically or logically necessary - we don't normally bother with it in give me, show me, lend me for example. But given we normally do include the preposition in explain to me, OP should be aware that some people will think he's ill-educated if he doesn't follow the majority usage.

EDIT: Being in "chart mode" here, I'll just include a related construction give it [to] me, where this chart clearly shows how usage has shifted over the past couple of centuries to favour including the preposition...

enter image description here

As with explain, the primary argument for including "to" is simply that this is what most other people do. And the primary argument against doing it is that other people tend to think if you don't copy the most common usage, you're not a competent speaker.

FumbleFingers
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  • The key term here is the Dative Alternation, which allows the order Su Vb IO DO as well as the order Su Vb DO to IO. Explain does not govern this alternation; give does. The rest is sociolinguistics. – John Lawler Dec 13 '11 at 15:38
  • @John: Agreed Dative Alternation gets more "down and dirty" with what's going on here than Barry's monotransitive verb, but clearly usage changes, as give it me above shows. Exactly the same transition has happened with show it me. I've no idea if there's a general tendency to use more prepositions nowadays - but I imagine you'll know the answer to that, and I would be interested. – FumbleFingers Dec 13 '11 at 15:56
  • I don't do that kind of linguistics; that's the sociolinguists' job. I'm a syntactician and semanticist, primarily. Like Jim McCawley, I don't try to separate syntax and semantics; they are intertwined. But I don't do recent history. – John Lawler Dec 13 '11 at 16:26
  • @John: oic. Well, I bet you do more of all kinds than me, anyway! As a dilettante I can't help thinking that since English has progressively discarded lots of inflections over the years, there might be a tendency to discard superfluous prepositions as well. But for all I know it might be that we're substituting prepositions for inflected forms, so as one goes down the other goes up. Or they may be totally unrelated tendencies, of course. – FumbleFingers Dec 13 '11 at 16:41
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    I wish I could do graphics as well as you. – John Lawler Dec 13 '11 at 17:24
  • Anyway, yes. That's the way it goes. Roots are like black holes; when the inflections get consumed, the auxiliaries get sucked in and become new inflections eventually. Keyword is *Grammaticalization*. – John Lawler Dec 13 '11 at 17:25
  • @John: We all have to learn. There seem to be different methods - I put my own answer to my own question when I found a way that seemed easy to me. But judging by the votes there, other people favour other methods. – FumbleFingers Dec 13 '11 at 17:30
  • I think it was you put me on to grammaticalisation a week or two ago. I like the concept better than the actual word - kinda like shuffling DNA. It creates new "words" which we eventually end up using in ways we wouldn't've (?!) with the originals. – FumbleFingers Dec 13 '11 at 17:37
  • let us continue this discussion in chat – John Lawler Dec 13 '11 at 17:39
  • Let us compare two examples: a) "The students were told to leave." in passive voice becomes 'XYZ told the students to leave'. b) "The students were explained to work" if changed to active voice becomes "XYZ explained (to) the students to work." In (b) doesn't it sound OK with (to) and/or without (to)? – Ram Pillai Dec 04 '20 at 16:51
  • @RamPillai: "The students were explained to work" is not a valid English sentence, so there's no meaning to the idea of "changing it to active voice". A syntactically similar but valid construction might be The rules were explained to the players = XYZ explained the rules to the players. – FumbleFingers Dec 04 '20 at 17:21
  • @FumbleFingers, yeah, then how would you help me understand 'tell me' vs. 'explain to me – Ram Pillai Dec 04 '20 at 17:29
  • @RamPillai: I suspect a few (younger) native speakers are starting to drop the preposition in contexts like Please explain me how this works, but mostly I see that one as clear evidence I'm dealing with a non-native Anglophone. Note that questions like Why do people say “explain to me”, not “explain me”? belong on English Language Learners, not here. – FumbleFingers Dec 04 '20 at 17:38
  • @FumbleFingers, yeah, I can understand it. Some usages remain like conventions ;) And, there is a lot of overlap in terms of the questions being asked in ELU and ELL, and we have lived with them most of the times. – Ram Pillai Dec 04 '20 at 17:43
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Slim's answer is good. Let's build on it a bit – mind the punctuation:

Explain it to me.
Correct.

Explain me.
Incorrect / You won't hear it.

Explain me this. Correct.

Can you explain me how to get there?
Correct.

Now, if we want to get grammatical, we can dissect the sentence to analyze what's going on in terms of structures. But, really, that is optional. The short story is that most of them are correct because you'll hear them and they mean something, while the incorrect one is never heard and doesn't really mean anything.

If we want to analyze it… Then the key is that it's a transitive verb, i.e.: it needs an object, which will be the thing being explained. Let's generalize:

Explain something to someone.

But you won't say or hear:

Explain someone.

(Well, you could say it, but that would be the exception rather than the rule. e.g.: Explain Chopin to me. if you talk to a pianist who knows that composer really well.)

Fabien Snauwaert
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Depending on the context, explain me is as correct as tell me. Both make perfect sense to me.

Kris
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