Is “let go your hand” grammatically correct?

Question

Wherever "let go of your hand" is used, can "let go your hand" be used in its place? Is there any difference at all?

Answer 1

"Let go your hand" is grammatically correct, but archaic. See Shakespeare's Julius Caesar: "let slip the dogs of war."

Answer 2

There is nothing grammatically incorrect in your phrase.

Consider thus:

    Let your hand go.

It is the same, where "your hand" is the direct object of the verb "let". You've simply inverted part of the sentence, which has no bearing on the grammatical soundness thereof.

It does sound a bit odd, all the same, at least, to me (native US English speaker) it does.

Answer 3

No, you shouldn't drop the prepostion of in the expression let go of.

The expression let go is used for ceasing employment, so the result could easily become confusing or misleading.

Answer 4

If it were "Let go my hand", I would have no hesitation in accepting it as a spoken alternative to "Let go of my hand".

But "Let go your hand" is odd, because "Let go of your hand" is an unlikely thing to say, so I would probably interpret it as "Let go (of something) with your hand".

Answer 5

As other stated - grammatically correct, but bit odd and even ambiguous, unclear.

Therefore the meaning is not the same:

Let your hand go

(tonybaldwin's example)

is different from

Let go of your hand

(which does imply it was held, where the first example does not)