TinyProf's Grammar Workshop 🎓

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1. What We're Solving

You're asking whether "notify X to Y" is a legitimate English construction, or whether only "notify Y of X" is standard — and whether the answer changes depending on active vs. passive voice.

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2. The Approach

To solve this, we need to think about how "notify" behaves as a verb — specifically, whether it's a ditransitive verb (one that can take two objects) and what grammatical patterns it permits. Verbs are surprisingly flexible, and the same verb can behave differently depending on voice and register. Let's dig in systematically! 🔍

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3. Step-by-Step Solution

Step 1: Understand Ditransitive Verbs First

Some verbs naturally take two objects — a direct object (the thing) and an indirect object (the recipient). Classic examples:

• "She sent him a letter." → recipient + thing
• "She sent a letter to him." → thing + "to" + recipient

Notice how with "send," both constructions feel equally natural. The key question is: does "notify" work the same way?

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Step 2: Identify "Notify's" Primary Pattern

The dominant, standard modern pattern for "notify" is:

> notify [recipient] of [information] > - "Please notify the manager of any changes." ✅

This is the construction you'll find in most style guides and that sounds most natural to native speakers today. Here, the recipient is the direct object and the information follows "of."

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Step 3: Test the "To" Construction

Now try the alternative:

> notify [information] to [recipient] > - "Please notify the changes to the manager." ❓

Does this work?

• In 19th and early 20th century English, this pattern was more common
• The OED does record it — but recording something ≠ recommending it for current use
• Today, most native speakers find this construction stilted or archaic
• You'll sometimes see it in legal or formal documents, particularly in British English

So it exists, but it carries a formal/dated flavour rather than feeling natural.

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Step 4: The Passive Voice — Where Things Get Trickier! ⚡

This is the really fascinating part of your question. Look at what happens in the passive:

Pattern A — "notify of" → passive: > Active: "We notified the staff of the decision." > Passive: "The staff were notified of the decision." ✅ Very natural!

Pattern B — "notify to" → passive: > Active: "We notified the decision to the staff." > Passive: "The decision was notified to the staff." 🤔

Here's the key insight: Pattern B's passive actually sounds more acceptable than its active form! Why? Because when you passivize, "the decision" becomes the subject — and talking about a thing being communicated feels more natural than awkwardly treating information as a direct object in the active voice.

This asymmetry isn't unusual — many constructions become more acceptable in one voice than another.

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Step 5: Why Does Voice Affect Acceptability?

Think about it this way:

| Construction | Who/What is foregrounded? | Feels natural? | |---|---|---| | "Notify the manager of the changes" (active) | The recipient | ✅ Yes | | "The manager was notified of the changes" (passive) | The recipient | ✅ Yes | | "Notify the changes to the manager" (active) | The information | ⚠️ Archaic | | "The changes were notified to the manager" (passive) | The information | ⚠️ Formal, but used |

The passive "notify to" survives in bureaucratic and legal English precisely because those registers often want to foreground the information being communicated rather than the person receiving it.

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Step 6: What Does Corpus Evidence Show?

If you searched real-world usage databases (like the British National Corpus or COCA), you'd find:

• "notified of" → overwhelmingly the most frequent pattern
• "was notified to" → rare, found mostly in formal/legal contexts
• "notify [thing] to [person]" in active voice → very infrequent in modern writing

This confirms: your instinct is essentially right for everyday and professional writing.

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4. The Answer

Here's the full picture:

| Construction | Status | |---|---| | "notify [recipient] of [information]" (active) | ✅ Standard and preferred | | "[recipient] was notified of [information]" (passive) | ✅ Standard and preferred | | "notify [information] to [recipient]" (active) | ⚠️ Archaic/formal; rare in modern use | | "[information] was notified to [recipient]" (passive) | ⚠️ Found in legal/formal registers; more acceptable than the active equivalent |

Bottom line: The OED is right that both exist historically, but your instinct is right that "notify of" is the modern standard. The "notify to" pattern survives mostly in passive formal writing, where it's technically acceptable but not recommended for general use.

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5. Memory Tip 💡

Think of it this way:

> "Notify" likes PEOPLE as its direct object, not things. > → "Notify them of it" — person comes first, thing follows with "of"

A helpful comparison: imagine "notify" as similar to "inform" — you'd say "inform her of the news", never naturally "inform the news to her." If it sounds wrong with "inform," it probably sounds wrong with "notify" too! 🎯