Expression: It's not that bad a place

[NinaZara]

Hello,

It's not that bad of a place.

It's not that bad a place.

Why is it ok for us to drop "of" here?

Many thanks in advance.

Nina

[Conchita]

It's not that it's okay to drop 'of', it's just wrong to use it, as far as I know -- as it would be to say 'it's a bad of place' instead of 'it's a bad place'.

[NinaZara]

Oh?I thought it was grammatically correct but I didn't understand it. Thanks Conchita!

[Diverhank]

The phrase you posted, "it's not that bad a place", is used in conversational English...I hear it used a lot in the US. I guess you can call it a slang... for the sake of discussion, adding an "of" is redundant :).

[Torsten]

Hi Diverhank,

Would you say that "slang" is countable? I'm asking because there are so many nouns in English that either countable or uncountable or both depending on the context and meaning. For example, time can be countable as well as uncountable.

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[Diverhank]

Hi Torsten, I'm guessing that it is countable since it's a place. In this expression, it means to say "a place that is not that bad" and is written this way to emphasize "not that bad".

By the way, things are nice and warm in Southern California where I live :).

[Torsten]

Hi Diverhank,

Thanks a lot for your immediate response. I actually was referring to the noun "slang". Do you think it is countable? I mean would you say "this is a slang" or rather "this is a slang expression" or simply "this is slang"? By the way, how come you can explain English language questions so clearly, is this just a hobby of yours or do you do this for a living?

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[Diverhank]

Oh, so sorry.... I obviously used it as a countable... I just use whatever sounds right...I'm weak on rules :). In this case, I meant "a slang expression", shortened to "a slang" out of laziness. So how many rules have I broken?

"By the way, how come you can explain English language questions so clearly?"...I can? :). Thank you for the compliment. I just try to keep it simple.

[Torsten]

Hi Diverhank,

This makes sense and it was I thought when I read your expression "a slang" but I wanted to make sure I had understood it correctly. Yes, your explanations are really down to the point and very helpful and I hope we will see many more of them.

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