Double-object verbs can be used in two structures,
e.g. He gave me this book. = He gave this book to me.
What about 'charge' (in the sense of asking for payment)?
For 'They charged me $10.', what should be the preposition in 'They charged $10 to/from me.'?
I know 'They charged me $10.' is the usual way to say it, but sometimes the description of the person charged can be very long (e.g. They charged Mr. Smith of the operations department of ABC Company $10.).
'to' is suggested ('Please charge this amount to my credit card/my account.') here: Charge payment "to", "on", or "against" a credit card/an account; charge a credit card/account/a person "with"an amount
But this sounds like an accounting context. Is it the same for the case above?
Best Answer
(1a) The verb charge can take a direct object whose referent is the person charged (the DO often followed by a money phrase in relevant examples):
(1b) Measure phrases are best considered not as an object but as a separate category.
I walked 10 miles.
It took her 3 hours.
It cost me £12.
Note that these resist or disallow passivisation, unlike 'Tom bought 10 books' or 'Tom gave Jill a book.'
And prepositional alternatives are not readily available here:
*It cost £12 off/to/for me.
*It took 3 hours of/off/to/... her.
(But note
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(2) The verb charge can alternatively take a direct object whose referent is the commodity being charged for:
These are inflexible, with the DO followed by a to-phrase indicating the person, account etc to be debited. They don't allow dative transformation (*Charge me the meal.)
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In your case, using a rewrite makes most sense: