Why are ‘too big issues’ not acceptable?
I was responding to a letter from a English teacher
that said to me, “i hope this does not cause too
big an issue” but my reply said “t? So while most visitors want to err on the side of caution, this site seems to suggest otherwise. What could he possibly pick out as incorrect in my usage of the phrase, and is it really significant enough of an issue to remark on in a reply?
Does describing a phrase on Quora affect the etymology of the phrase? Is it concerned with whole phrase? Can an issue be “big”, or should it be “significant”?), and not just that one part.
Zwicky, in Exceptional Degree Markers, describes the too
big of a dog expression
as being confined to American dialects (p 113; see also footnotes). Is of now more than just a preposition? Is a virus a virus? Is there a difference between “Abney” & Radford” in how sound they are?
(Because the house is too big) is very wrong, one should not buy a house. What makes a handsome man c.? How long of a board?
In Language Log: Bundling, he gives the following examples of and comments on ‘intrusive of’: On to
‘intrusive’ of. Here, many commenters bundle P + of
(in alongside/inside/off/out/outside of) together
the of that appears in one variant of exceptional degree modification (the much-reviled too big of a dog as an alternative to too big a dog ), but the two phenomena have nothing to do with one another beyond that of.
These are extensive discussion in the 5 P + of cases on in this course handout of mine . As for the P and the V, there’s a separate story for each one (though some handbooks recommend against P + of in general): plain out is extremely restricted; outside of is not colloquial; off of is somewhat on the conversational side; etc. Off off is the combination that gets the heaviest criticism, though I don’t think that on the evidence of actual use, it can be classified as non-standard — on the colloquial side, but not non-standard.
Admittedly, this is 25-30 years old, but the descriptors ‘dialectic’, ‘non-standard’,’mildly alarming’ and even’much reviled’ should perhaps urge care in using this construction.
Zwicky, in Exceptional Degree Markers, describes the too
big of a dog expression
as being confined to American dialects (p 113; see also footnotes). Is of now more than just a preposition? Is a virus a virus? Is there a difference between “Abney” & Radford” in how sound they are?
(Because the house is too big) is very wrong, one should not buy a house. What makes a handsome man c.? How long of a board?
In Language Log: Bundling, he gives the following examples of and comments on ‘intrusive of’: On to
‘intrusive’ of. Here, many commenters bundle P + of
(in alongside/inside/off/out/outside of) together
the of that appears in one variant of exceptional degree modification (the much-reviled too big of a dog as an alternative to too big a dog ), but the two phenomena have nothing to do with one another beyond that of.
These are extensive discussion in the 5 P + of cases on in this course handout of mine . As for the P and the V, there’s a separate story for each one (though some handbooks recommend against P + of in general): plain out is extremely restricted; outside of is not colloquial; off of is somewhat on the conversational side; etc. Off off is the combination that gets the heaviest criticism, though I don’t think that on the evidence of actual use, it can be classified as non-standard — on the colloquial side, but not non-standard.
Admittedly, this is 25-30 years old, but the descriptors ‘dialectic’, ‘non-standard’,’mildly alarming’ and even’much reviled’ should perhaps urge care in using this construction.
