Korean Job Discussion Forums

[theatrelily]

My co-teacher asked me to explain why the order of the phrase "as good a job as...." is correct.

She says she was taught that the word order must be article --adjective- noun and wants to know why the phrase above is acceptable.

I don't know how to explain it to her. An hour of web searches has turned up nothing.

This is somewhat embarrassing, but could someone please give me an explanation for the word order in the comparison of equality above that I could relay to her.

Thanks in advance.

[gregoriomills]

You're speaking incorrectly, but it sounds right because you're a native, and that's how we speak. Sentence breakdown:

You're using the expression "as good as" with the prepositional phrase "of a job." Written corectly, it reads "as good of a job as..." But since we're natives, and we don't like long sentences, we shorten it to "as good a job as."

So it should be: "as good of a job as"
I did as good of a job as did. or
I do as good of a job as she does.
etc etc

[Jammer113]

Taking a stab without being too linguisticy...

The proper way to add an adjective to a noun would be to put it after the article.

"a job"
"a good job"

But that's not what you're doing when you have

"as ..... as"

The ..... requires an adjective, not a noun.

"as happy as"
"as funny as"
"as good as"

When you have "as good a job as" then "a job" as only adding specifics to 'good'. More completely, you can say "as good of a job as". The noun is adding information to the adjective, not the other way around.

[theatrelily]

Thanks.

I guess part of the problem is that the textbook we are using has written it


"as good a job as...." so we were assuming the grammar was correct.

It definitely would not be the first time a grammar text in this country has errors....

[Jammer113]

The grammar is correct. It is perfectly acceptable in English to omit the word. If I were writing an academic paper, however, I would think twice about omitting the word.

[D.D.]

I like how they focus on crap like this when they can barely use common words.

[curlygirl]