“Big of a”

you've just explained to yourself how "hella" came to be in norcal.

Adding the "of" creates the prepositional phrase "of a deal", changing the meaning from a specific noun to a general one; or in this case from a specific transaction (this deal), to a type of transaction (any deal).

It would be considered correct either way, they just have slightly different meanings.

I just think that Americans have their own dialect which can be quite irritating. To quote Henry Higgins in "My Fair Lady", "Americans have not spoken English for years".

When you add the extra of this makes the word "deal" the object of the preposition "of". this changes the word deal from a specific encounter to a generic one. does that make sence? I don't always.

Oh! Sorry Ben, I hadent read the other comments befor I wrote mine or I wouldn't have written it! again, sorry!

>

Heaven forbid a completely different culture from yours should dare to have a different dialect.

haha, I just read another post describing how the English often omit prepositions that normally are present (in ENGLISH English!) Maybe this is just YOUR colloquialism.

More likely it is influenced by other such phrases: hell of a ride, giant of a man, etc. What may have begun as 'not that big a deal', a negative reworking of 'a deal that big' (ultimately) now has an 'of' there. It also makes the phrase more rythmical.

Oh, and people who get irritated by other forms of dialect really have no interest in the study of language.

It really annoys me too, which was how I came across this page. I always thought "big a deal" made more sense, because how can something be "big of"? If you say anything is "of a deal" doesn't mean much either.

I mean, fair enough if it is potentially correct, but it still annoys me :p No offense. It's like saying "couple things" not "couple of things"... I didn't thing "a couple" literally meant "two." I thought "A couple" was like saying "a pair."

Anyway, I appreciate the existence of different dialects, or whatever they are. I'm going to continue my search...

Gee, I thought that "...big a deal" was the more colloquial, an elided form of "...big of a deal".

You know what really irks me? Stuck up anglophiles who refer to American English as a "dialect", or even worse, a "bastardization" of "real" English. There are five of us for every one of you in the world. English, that is, American English has recently become the language of world commerce due to the unbridled economic success of the United States, and not, as much as you might like to think, from your failed attempt at world domination hundreds of years ago. You are the ones speaking some dialect.

Hey Anonymous, I bet you think Dutch is a dialect of Afrikaans as well!

Hey Reg, sure, due to the unbridled economic success of... Oh, wait a minute, Afrikaans is spoken in South Africa, isn't it? Nevermind.

No offense intended to any of my South African friends. I'm just pointing out the stellar logic in Reg's brilliant comeback.

It's not that American (or Canadian, or Australian, or South African, etc.) English is a dialect and British English is not. They're all dialects. There is no one perfect English to which we must all aspire. As a Canadian, I speak a slightly varied version of English than other English speakers in the world. And my regional English (Southern Ontario) is also different than the English spoken elsewhere in Canada. In fact, my English (my own idiolect) is different from even my roommate's English. Not wrong, just different. In conclusion, there's no reason to get all uppity about the term "dialect."

Can this be the only place onteh internetz that discusses this point? There must be a name for the construction.

I imagine the "of" is added because the form is so rare where the article follows the adjective. Posh Brits use it all the time though, so there must be a name for it.

"I hadn't prepared for so late a night"

Is it when you want to modify the adjective then?

"It's not a that big deal" X
"It's a not that big deal" X
"It's not that big a deal" Tick

Sigh, ranting into the internetz instead of doing work is not going to get me out of the office any sooner...

I don't mind Americanisms if they make sense, but this one doesn't. 'Big is an adjective'; 'much' is a determiner (or pronoun or adverb). Therefore: "Would you like some of the cake?" and "How much of the cake would you like?" Whereas: "Would you like a big piece of the cake?" and "How big a piece of the cake would you like?"

My wife is American and I am British and we both learned "it's not that big a deal" in school, but that was a long time ago. Which leads me to believe that it's not a UK-US thing, it's an age thing. The "of" has snuck into the language on both sides of the Atlantic over the past few decades. At first it was only in the spoken language but in recent years I have seen marketers and even journalists using "of." Language evolves, I guess.