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I was at a retail store buying some stuff. As I was standing at the counter to check out, a foreign military person, whom I suspect was with the U.N., walked in, held up a U.S. dollar bill, and asked the cashier:

Can you change me?

From the context, I understood that he wanted to exchange his bill for smaller denominations. But is that phrase correct or common in English to convey that meaning?

Had he not been holding up the bill, I would have thought he was asking for help to “become a changed man,” which sounds odd in this context.

The phrasing I’m more familiar with would be something like:

Can you give me change?
Can you break this bill for me?

So, is “Can you change me?” an acceptable alternative, or is it simply non-idiomatic?

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    @EdwinAshworth You used hill in both instances. Surely you meant bill? Commented Aug 22 at 10:39
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    Isn't it a literal translation from another language? Commented Aug 22 at 12:53
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    This site is devoted to English language and usage. That may include analysis of the usage that is marginal or problematic, but not analysing at length what is, according to the question itself, a single instance of using a nonstandard construction, by somebody speaking English as a foreign language, in casual interaction. Such cases cannot, by any stretch, be regarded as English language and usage. Commented Aug 22 at 16:22
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    @jsw29 — This is English language and usage. You can certainly find e.g., Can you change me a ____ dollar bill? in the literatures. See "change me" "dollar bill" and go in a few pages of results), From there, holding up a bill and elliding a dollar bill (Can you change me?) seems unremarkable. For a British take, you can try "change me" "pound note". Commented Aug 22 at 19:03
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    @Mitch I disagree. This question is along the lines of "I've never heard this usage before, and it sure seems wrong, but one person (of whom mistakes may be expected) used it once; is it a mistake?" Such questions seem like they need some "burden of proof" in the form of research. Finding parallel usages make it worth researching; finding none seems to solve the mystery. Commented Aug 22 at 20:17

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In my experience, this is not a common expression. These would be more normal ways to express it:

Can you change a five?
Can you change this? [holding up the bill]
Can you give me change?

Since the speaker was a foreigner, it's possible that "change me" is a literal translation of how they say it in his language.

There are some casual, slangy expressions of the form "[verb] me" that are idiomatic (some were mentioned in the comments), but I've never heard "change me" used like this, and I've been in many situations where people asked a clerk or server to make change for them.

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  • For that matter, it's possible that the speaker simply confused his pronouns (I certainly do in secondary languages), and meant can you change this. Commented Aug 22 at 15:15
  • I admit I don't have much experience speaking secondary languages (I took French in high school and went to Hebrew School as a child, but I've never spent much time abroad). But even when I was first learning them, I don't think I would have gotten common pronouns mixed up. Commented Aug 22 at 15:19
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    It is not an expression at all. In French, you can say change me. like that. Not in English. Commented Aug 22 at 16:05
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    "Can you change me?" pleaded the baby with the poopy diaper. :) // But ¿Me lo cambias? is a perfectly normal Spanish way to ask if someone will change some "it" (whatever "it" is) for you. The me is a "dative of interest" there, the beneficiary. It can do that in English, too, but not with this verb. That makes it more likely that this is calquing some other language that allows more transitive predicate frames to include a beneficiary as a second object than Modern English tends to allow. You do see some variation in admissibility with native speakers, but not really here. Commented Aug 25 at 2:57

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