Deliver vs. arrive

[Strawberry girl]

Test No. incompl/inter-17 "Eating Out", question 3

We waited one hour for the main dish to ......... and then it was the wrong order.

(a) arrive
(b) reach
(c) deliver
(d) send

Test No. incompl/inter-17 "Eating Out", answer 3

We waited one hour for the main dish to arrive and then it was the wrong order.

Correct answer: (a) arrive

Your answer was: incorrect
We waited one hour for the main dish to deliver and then it was the wrong order.
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Hi,ALAN
I supposed that arrive always used in arrive a place, but deliver can be used for deliver things.
Am I right?And why?
Strawberry girl

[Alan]

Hi Strawberry,

I can see you're a very busy girl this morning! In the sentence I've used arrive because here it means come to the table. You couldn't use deliver here because it usually takes an object so you would have to use the passive infinitive and say: We waited for the main dish to be delivered.

Alan
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English as a Second Language
You can read my ESL story French or English?

[Mister Micawber]

.
The point to notice here is that arrive does not require a direct object, where deliver (and reach and send) do. (In this sentence, with dish as the subject of the nonfinite clause, deliver would also require the passive voice.) Therefore, arrive is the only possible answer.

Other grammatical possibilities would be:

to reach us
to be delivered to us
to be sent to us

(In a restaurant, as this is, however, none of these makes collocational sense either.)

PS: Oops! Sorry, Alan-- I didn't see you typing there ahead of me.

MM
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Canadian-American native speaker
who teaches English for a living at Mister Micawber's
ESL cafe: Interview with Mr. Micawber

[mudium]

why cannot we use reach hear . reach and arrive both are same right?
jyo

[Mister Micawber]

.
Please read the posts above. 'Reach' requires an object.
.
_________________
Canadian-American native speaker
who teaches English for a living at Mister Micawber's
ESL cafe: Interview with Mr. Micawber