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I frequently see phrases like “how good of a cook is she?” I would have said “how good a cook is she?” without the insertion of “of.” Is either form incorrect?

Linda Woodbury
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    In the UK "How good of a cook is she?" would probably be seen as non-standard and "How good a cook..." as standard. (There are harsher comments on the subject at Quora!) "How much of a..." (e.g. "How much of a mess did you make?") is perfectly idiomatic. – Old Brixtonian Aug 05 '21 at 17:12
  • Related questions: https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/549469/how-to-use-good-of-a-followed-by-a-noun https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/460489/how-good-an-experience-vs-how-good-of-an-experience https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/30011/how-big-of-a-problem-vs-how-big-a-problem – Stuart F Aug 05 '21 at 18:06
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1 Answers1

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You should say 'How good a cook is she?'.

'Good of a', 'big of a', etc, are informal US regional dialect forms, and not considered standard English.

While noun + of a + noun is very much standard, e.g. an angel of a wife, a nightmare of a day, things get more complicated when adjectives are used. Using adjectives of quantity is standard, e.g. enough of a reason, too much of a coward. Using adjectives of degree — 'good/bad', 'big/small', 'long/short', 'old/young', 'hard/easy', 'near/far', and so on — the 'of a' pattern is not considered standard English.

Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage summarizes this dialectal construction as “a fairly recent American idiom that has nearly a fixed form: that or how or too, or sometimes as, followed by an adjective, then of a and a noun.”

Michael Harvey
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