My Grammar and I (Or Should That Be 'Me'?): Old-School Ways to Sharpen Your English

bonus
direct
object
To whom did he pay
it?
To me
indirect
object
Hang on, you may say, how about The boss paid me? Doesn’t that make me the
direct object?
Well,  no.  The  test  here  is  to  see  if  you  can  rework  the  sentence  to  put  a
preposition  in  front  of  the  object.  If  you  can,  it’s  an  indirect  object.  You  could
easily  rephrase  the  above  example  to  become  My  boss  paid  a  bonus  to  me  .
Clumsy,  perhaps,  but  it  makes  sense  (and  it  would  be  absolutely  fine  if  you
wanted to say My boss paid a bonus to everyone in my department ).
Don’t trip up on a sentence that begins with there and a form of the verb to be .
There  is  not  the  subject  in  this  case:  There  were  lots  of  people  out  for  a  walk
today. To find the correct subject ask who ? or what? before the verb. Who was
out for a walk today? Answer: lots of people .

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