Rob Watts (RobWords) @robwords.com · Apr 14 It's weird, right? We Brits skip the "to" if we mention what we're writing ("I wrote her a letter"). I don't think the "to" was added later. These examples show prepositions with "write" way back: "til" and "unto". I guess we just picked a side. @jesszafarris.bsky.social One for our AmE v BrE ep?
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Very much down to get into this, but I’m not sure this is a clear-cut UK/US difference. “I wrote her” sounds old-fashioned to me because my grandmother would probably say it like that, but I would be equally as likely to hear “I wrote to her.” Could be a regional preference.
"I wrote her a letter" is a separate case though, because it's an elision(-ish) of "I wrote a letter to her" so the to is implied? like "I sent her a letter" is "I sent a letter to her" - so perhaps "I wrote her" is just a further elision (of "a letter/an email")?
oh for sure, I'm emphatically not picking sides here, I'm on the side of language diversity and am grammar antifa :)