Our coach forbids (us) 'drinking'/'to drink'

Question

In my grammar book "Grammatica Inglese Facile (Simple English Grammar)" I read that the following sentences are both correct:

Our coach forbids drinking.

Our coach forbids us to drink.

But the book adds that the latter cannot rewritten in this way:

Our coach forbids us drinking.

However the book doesn't explain its last statement, thus I'm asking if someone can explain whether what the book states true is. If so, why?

Also note the first cannot be rewritten "our coach forbids to drink." — Peter Shor, Jul 01 '12 at 10:38

score 5 · Answer 1 · edited Jul 01 '12 at 18:44

5

"Forbids drinking" is OK because the gerund (V+ing) is the object of your verb.

When you want to mention both the person and the act, you can choose between:

forbid somebody to V
forbid somebody from V+ing

You can say "Our coach forbids drinking," and "Our coach forbids us from drinking."

Personally, I prefer to use "forbid to," though.

edited Jul 01 '12 at 18:44

apaderno

59,185

answered Jul 01 '12 at 11:23

Cool Elf

9,834

It's not just you, "forbid s.o. to" is much more common than "forbid s.o. from". – Peter Shor Jul 01 '12 at 11:45
I think so too, Peter. But I didn't want to disregard the usage of "forbid from," which has gained some degree of acceptance. Thanks! – Cool Elf Jul 01 '12 at 12:22
1

Sometimes going with the less common could make you special, though:) – Noah Jul 01 '12 at 14:29

score 4 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:38

4

The reason is that the verb forbid is transitive but not doubly transitive. That is, it needs one object, but cannot take two objects. The object, however, can be either the thing forbidden or the person to which it is forbidden.

I forbid it.
I forbid you.

(You can't just say "I forbid"; you need the "it" or "you", but either one works).

Our coach forbids alcohol to the team.
Our coach forbids the team to drink alcohol.

I believe some dialects permit a doubly transitive forbid, but most dialects don't:

*Our coach forbids the team alcohol.

Those people who do permit it would allow your last example.

This happens with other verbs as well, like provide, which is only doubly transitive in America—see this question.

edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:38

Community

1

answered Jul 01 '12 at 11:54

Peter Shor

88,407

Can't I say: I forbid! as an order? – Noah Jul 01 '12 at 14:31
"Doubly transitive"? Like elect or choose? – John Lawler Jul 01 '12 at 17:37
Doubly transitive, like "I gave you the tickets". You can have a direct object and an indirect object, both with no prepositions. – Peter Shor Jul 01 '12 at 18:18
1

@Noah: You can't say "I forbid!"—that sounds like a non-native speaker to me. You have to say "I forbid it!" or "I forbid you!", which both work fine. – Peter Shor Jul 01 '12 at 18:21
3

This answer assumes that drinking is being used as a noun in the "bad" example, and is accurate based on that premise. But drinking here could also be a gerund; for example, if the sentence were "Our coach saw us drinking", see is not taking two objects. I think the last sentence possibly fails only on semantic grounds, and in the right context, doesn't even fail at all. "Our couch doesn't forbid all drinking. Our coach forbids us drinking." I think this works. – Kosmonaut Jul 01 '12 at 19:13
Are you sure? The double-object form (that is, both direct and indirect objects, so fully transitive) seems perfectly standard to my (possibly jaded or antiquarian) ear. The OED has plenty of “double object” examples of forbid, such as from Dickens: “Will you forbid him the house where I know he's safe?” That said, the OED does go on to say that the specific form of to forbid someone from doing something is now rare, as in “He forbade both men and women from entering them.” That surprises me, as it seems completely current to me. – tchrist Jul 01 '12 at 20:50
@tchrist: I'm not sure. This Ngram seems to say that (1) the incidence of forbid is going down in general and (2) the double-object form is going down much faster. – Peter Shor Jul 01 '12 at 22:27
@tchrist: looking at the recent instances of "forbid me the" in Google books, a lot of them are either reprints of older material or historical fiction, so I think the double-object construction is indeed archaic, although it may well still be used in some dialects. – Peter Shor Jul 02 '12 at 18:26
"Our coach forbids the team to drink alcohol." is not grammatical in my dialect (RP English) "from drinking" would be what I would use. Speakers of other dialects seem to use infinitives more than participles, or maybe it is just non-native speakers (I don't know). – Francis Davey May 18 '14 at 16:04

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 01 '12 at 20:28

2

Perhaps it could be said that Our coach forbids the team alcohol contains an implied to, making the team an indirect object; i.e. Our coach forbids to the team alcohol. (Admittedly ...alcohol to the team sits better).

Similar to Give it me! = Give it to me!

answered Jul 01 '12 at 20:28

Barry Brown

799

However, grammar books normally state that the double-object construction is only possible when the direct object is either a noun or name, whereas it is to be avoided when it is a pronoun, in which case you are supposed to use the regular construction verb + direct object + indirect object. – Paola Jul 01 '12 at 21:05

Our coach forbids (us) 'drinking'/'to drink'

3 Answers3