Grammar of Spoken English (3): Give me five VS Give five

If you watch TV or movies to learn spoken English, you must have come across the following: Give me five.   However, there was time I heard someone say ‘Give five.’ Is it correct? Are there any differences between Give five and Give me five.  In terms of meaning, there is not much difference between the two. That is, when someone says Give five or Give me five, you will do the same action, right?






So, once again, if Give five correct?  Absolutely not!  Why? When you read grammar books, they will tell you the verb ‘Give’ takes two nouns (a person + a thing), but they do Not tell you why.  

Well, bad news and good news. The bad news is nobody knows why, which is why grammar books do not explain it. It may due to the fact that people who speak English as a first language have been doing it since long long ago, and it is so natural that nobody cares to ask why.







The good news is: you can be playful about verbs. That is, you may group transitive verbs (verbs followed by nouns) into two types: Slim Verbs and Fat Verbs.   
       


Slim verbs are verbs (such as ‘take’ or ‘like’) that are followed by one noun only.

	Verb followed by a noun	Noun / Pronoun
	Take	it
I	like	it

Well, imagine verbs are just like people. If you eat a hot dog a day, I guess you will be slim, right? So, they are called Slim Verbs because they take only one noun (one hot dog).   On the contrary, ‘give’ eats two hot dogs a day that it is a Fat Verb. So we have:

Fat Verb	1st Hotdog	2nd Hotdog
Give	me	five
Give	me	a break
Buy	me	a drink
Show	me	the way