@NNC
I don't think this is right

A native told me it'd be "I envy your luck" instead of "I envy you your luck"

It is correct. Similarly
I refuse you your leave of absence.

I forgive you your sins.

I grant you your effrontery.

So is it a dialectal thing or a matter of style or such?

It seems ti be considered grammatically correct, but I cannot for the life of me understand what "you" adds to the meaning of this sentence. "I envy your luck" seems to mean exactly the same, as the possessive pronoun already shows whose this luck is. Hence, it makes no sense why such a construction would be used at all. Can anyone cast light on this instance?

It is in fact more formal English. US natives do not necessarily learn correct English grammar.

@Ooneykcall. Strictly speaking "I envy your luck" means that you only envy the luck and not necessarily the person who has the luck.
However "I envy you your luck", means "I envy you on account of your luck''. So the object of the envy has changed. Granted, most people are not careful speakers and wouldn't know the difference.

But it is the same thing, because if you envy my luck then you envy me for having it. What could the actual difference be?

Okay, does envy as is meant here include resentment? Because it doesn't have to, and I'd like to think people usually don't mean it that way but only in the sense of desiring something they don't have (I envy something = I want to have it, I envy someone's something = I want to have something that someone has). If one uses the latter sentence with a twofold sense of both desiring something and resenting the person who has it for having something you don't but wish you did, then I guess I can see this making sense: you'd say "I envy your X" to mean "I want to have the X you have" and "I envy you your X" to mean "I want to have X and it makes me feel unpleasant [annoyed, resentful...] that you do and I don't". Is it how this is supposed to work?

Here are several other examples of "I envy you your ..."

https://tatoeba.org/eng/sentenc...+envy+you+your

Here is the Google Ngram viewer

https://books.google.com/ngrams...0their%3B%2Cc0

You can click the links below the graph to find examples of use in books.


It's interesting to note that, at least in books, there seems to be a revival of this pattern since the late 1990s.

I just want to make sure if this is, as it would seem, commonly understood to mean the same as "I envy your X", and inserting a direct object is merely traditional while being pleonastic in modern parlance. I can think of an example in Russian that fits this pattern.

I didn't read the page, but the answer you're looking for might be here.

https://english.stackexchange.c...your-something

Perhaps you'd like to focus on the word group "envy" today.

Below is an advanced search that lets you look through the English sentences (newest first) that I've already proofread with the following words.

envy|envying|envied|envies|envious|enviable

https://tatoeba.org/eng/sentenc...d&trans_to=und
Advanced search (123 results)


Here is the same search (with a random sort), but only showing the sentences that do not yet have Russian translations.

https://tatoeba.org/eng/sentenc...o&trans_to=rus
Advanced search (76 results)


Here is the same search (with a random sort), but only showing the sentences that do not yet have Esperanto translations.

https://tatoeba.org/eng/sentenc...o&trans_to=epo
Advanced search (88 results)