I’m genuinely fascinated by this language pattern: “great of a guy”. In, er, classic? traditional? British? English, the “of” just isn’t used. I see it so often as “big of a problem”.
A great guy -> How great a guy I was.
A big problem -> How big a problem is it?
Is this just colloquialism, or is it how grammar is taught?
Yes, thanks. I’d seen that and it seemed very much ‘this is how it is’ as opposed to ‘this is how it’s taught’. The rule as I understood was that ‘of’ should be used in combination with adjectives that denote an ‘amount’ of something (eg ‘much’, ‘many’, etc.) whereas adjectives that denote a ‘characteristic’ of something (eg ‘big’, ‘great’, etc.) should not be used with of.
The latter are far more numerous and so use with ‘of’ is rare. But is seems to be used with almost every adjective in US sources.
I’m genuinely fascinated by this language pattern: “great of a guy”. In, er, classic? traditional? British? English, the “of” just isn’t used. I see it so often as “big of a problem”.
A great guy -> How great a guy I was. A big problem -> How big a problem is it?
Is this just colloquialism, or is it how grammar is taught?
https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/30011/how-big-of-a-problem-vs-how-big-a-problem
You might find this interesting.
Yes, thanks. I’d seen that and it seemed very much ‘this is how it is’ as opposed to ‘this is how it’s taught’. The rule as I understood was that ‘of’ should be used in combination with adjectives that denote an ‘amount’ of something (eg ‘much’, ‘many’, etc.) whereas adjectives that denote a ‘characteristic’ of something (eg ‘big’, ‘great’, etc.) should not be used with of.
The latter are far more numerous and so use with ‘of’ is rare. But is seems to be used with almost every adjective in US sources.
See here too: https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2014/01/not-that-big-of-a-deal.html