Sunday, December 13, 2009

A Question of “Of”

The Language Lady is always eager to answer readers’ questions. Today, I am printing a recent question from a reader, “Danny,” in California, who wants to know about that potentially tricky word, “of”:

Danny: It's widely agreed among linguists that "of" is superfluous in phrases such as "that long OF a game" or "not that handsome OF an actor" or "too big OF a task."

The rule I derive from this is that when "of" follows an adjective in such situations, it's superfluous.

But how about when "of" follows "much," as in "it wasn't much of a game" or "too much of a challenge"? If "much" in those phrases is an adjective, does it "violate" the rule? Or is it an idiomatic exception to the rule? Or in those cases is it not an adjective at all, but a noun?

The Language Lady: The short answer to your question, Danny, is: Yes!

That is, “much,” as in “It wasn’t much of a game,” is a pronoun; more specifically, a pronoun complement, which means that “It” and “much” refer to each other. (That’s why saying, “This is she,” is correct when you answer the phone (unless you’re a guy and you say, “This is HE.”) And in the sentence, “That was not much of a game,” the prepositional phrase, “of a game,” modifies “much.”

The other sentence, “He is not that good of an actor,” is – as suspected – wrong. It should be, “He is not that good an actor.” (OR: He is not much of an actor.)

The reason is, the prepositional phrase, “of an actor” is trying unsuccessfully to modify the adjective, “good.” But prepositional phrases cannot modify adjectives – only nouns or pronouns: a street IN London; the building ON the corner, a friend OF mine, etc.

In the above sentence, “good” describes both “He” AND “actor.” (These are all subject “complements,” since they all refer to each other.) Any “of” – as you said -- would be superfluous, tacked onto the wrong part of speech.

Which is why saying, “Not that big OF a deal” is so cringe-worthy. It should either be “Not that big a deal” or “No big deal.”

1 comment:

The Language Lady said...

Hi Danny -- I've given your question some more thought and perhaps a clearer answer than the earlier one. Please check out the post on December 13 -- and keep those questions coming!

All the best,

The Language Lady