It's not worth spreading around this.

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Silverobama

Key Member
Joined
Aug 8, 2010
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Student or Learner
Native Language
Chinese
Home Country
China
Current Location
China
I was chatting with a friend who also teaches English. I told her that I helped a student to achieve a high score in this year's entrance exam. The student was once at level D (72 of 150) and now he's in B (110.5 of 150). The full score is 150, yes.

Then my friend said "Wow, that's really something. I should help you to let others know that you are good at helping students to achieve high scores". I said thank you to her because it wasn't easy. That student was a tough nut. But I added:

It's not worth spreading around this. (this refers to helping him getting high score.)

I don't think it's natural at all. What would native speakers say?
 
Rover, would you please be so kind to tell us what a native speaker would say in such a context?
 
Thanks, but no thanks.
I wouldn't like/could do without the publicity.
 
If you want to go into more detail you might say:

Thanks for the offer, but it was too much work, and I'd rather not do it again very soon. (If that's what you mean.)
 
Use "Spreading this around". The other word order is unnatural.

Similarly it's "Give it up" not "Give up it", "Call them in" not "Call in them" and so forth.

Interestingly, though, "Give up that" and "Give that up" are both okay, and I'm at a loss to explain why. Maybe some of our grammarians can.
 
Interestingly, though, "Give up that" and "Give that up" are both okay, and I'm at a loss to explain why. Maybe some of our grammarians can.

If a phrasal verb is separable, a pronoun will pretty much always separate it.

I'm surprised you'd consider give up that as natural, since it goes against this rule.
 
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