Re: Verbs of Transfer and Exchange in Cherani Trade Speech

John Cowan wrote at 2003-02-11 06:21:34 (-0500)
 >
 > What *is* weird about English is its ability to promote the IO as
 > well as the DO to subject by passivization: "The fish was given to
 > Tlefrin by Netannin".  BrE can omit the "to" here, but AmE can't.
 >

!  I can't necessarily speak for all BrE speakers, but _I_ can't do
that.  Maybe in rather archaic or dialectal speech...  The effect, to
me, is not unlike when Americans speak of "writing someone".