firm believer that

[Benjamin Barrett]

A non-native speaker of English asks me whether the following is grammatical:

"I'm a firm believer that anyone can have a breakthrough right in her own backyard."

It's from an essay of Oprah in the current issue of O Magazine.

It took me about five reads before I spotted anything possibly amiss, but "a firm believer that…" definitely appears wrong now that I see it.

I think this must come from a cross of "I'm a firm believer in the idea that…" and  "I firmly believe that…"

Is that correct?

Benjamin Barrett
Seattle, WA

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org