Sadly, I have neither the energy nor the creativity necessary to turn this into a complaint that will be read about by young children in history books a hundred years from now. Instead, I will offer a plaintive plea, a soulful supplication, an alliterative anguished assertion:
For Pete’s sake, you recommend something to someone! In the past three months alone…
i find that advil liqui-gels work best and fastest. i never used to use brand name meds, since they all have the same active ingredients, but the liqui-gels really start to work quicker!
I get the same bad-usage eye-twitch from these titles too. I just hadn’t been motivated to pit it myself first. There are too many other grammar felonies that bug me more. Like, “this thing needs fixed/polished/washed/other verb ending in -ed.” I read that one and think “Someone needs smacked upside the head.” (Not that I’ve seen it in SDMB thread titles. Sorry, it’s getting late.)
They’re just treating recommend like a whole bunch of verbs that DO commonly take indirect objects.
Ex:
Give me a hug.
Bake me a cake.
Buy me a present.
Tell me a story.
I’ve found little information on the rules for this particular verb, but I did find this, from the “BBI Combinatory Dictionary of English”:
So this source considers “recommend me x” to be proper in British English but not in American English. It’s a construction that seems fairly natural, follows the pattern of a lot of common constructions, AND may be considered correct in some areas. I think this is a losing fight.
