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I made up the following sentence:

He spent $300 talking to a counsellor.

But a native speaker said "One doesn't spend $300 in talking to a counsellor. The fees for the session(s) may be $300, the costs of long distance phone calls to a counsellor may be $300, but no native speaker of English would write the sentence as you have written it."

Could someone tell me what's wrong?

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  • The missing preposition is the possible culprit, as it (or in as your critic did) gives a sense of "during the course of." Try using on instead, which would mean the expense incurred for a purpose in a broad sense: "He spent $300 on talking to a counselor." HTH.
    – Kris
    Commented Dec 20, 2014 at 12:48
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    @Kris It certainly sounds more "proper" to include the preposition, but the original line sounds fine to my ear, especially in a colloquial context. The implication of the sentence is also very clear - that $300 was spent on counselling services (any other interpretation would be stretching it). I'd say the "native speaker" is way off base on this one.
    – Deepak
    Commented Dec 20, 2014 at 14:10
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    It seems that 'no native speaker of English would' should rather be 'only in certain registers would native speakers of English'. Has 'a native speaker' a similar problem accepting 'He spent three hours looking at the stars', where the expenditure/time=money metaphor is used, and where 'in' and 'on' don't sound very idiomatic?
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented Dec 20, 2014 at 15:00
  • @EdwinAshworth: Without entirely agreeing with this native speaker, I can see what he meant. You do spend time looking at the stars; you do not spend money talking, unless you feed money into a slot on the counsellor. Spending $300 on counselling would be a reasonable alternative.
    – Tim Lymington
    Commented Dec 20, 2014 at 15:18
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    There is nothing really wrong with the original statement. One could elaborate as to what the charges were specifically for, but that's probably unnecessary detail.
    – Hot Licks
    Commented Dec 20, 2014 at 15:47

1 Answer 1

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He spent $300 talking to a counsellor.

Apart from "counsellor", it sounds like idiomatic American English to me.

He spent $500 talking to a lawyer.

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    "Talking to a lawyer" is a collocation that means "discussing a legal matter with hired counsel".
    – TimR
    Commented Dec 20, 2014 at 13:01
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    "Talking to a counsellor" is a collocation that means "discussing a personal matter with a designated (and potentially hired) psychologist."
    – John Lawler
    Commented Dec 20, 2014 at 18:21

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