[Ads-l] intrusive "of" intrudes further

[Laurence Horn]

> On Jun 11, 2015, at 2:58 PM, Neal Whitman <nwhitman at AMERITECH.NET> wrote:
> 
> This is the first time in my recollection that I've seen it intrude into constructions where the "how ADJ" is predicative rather than attributive.
> 
> Neal

I don't find it particularly odd.  Googling "I/You don't know how good of an idea" or "...how big of a relief" or whatever produces scads of hits that seem totally natural to me. Ditto, say, this very sequence as it appears in "Beyond that I don't know how large of an area you have to scour or what".  Or is there a condition that would rule out the example below while allowing the ones above?  Is it the definite ("the area")?  Maybe I'm missing something.  

LH
> 
> On 6/11/2015 2:47 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
>> Subject:      intrusive "of" intrudes further
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> 
>> New York State Police spokeswoman:
>> 
>> "I cannot tell you how large of the area is we're searching in."
>> 
>> JL
>> 
> 
> -- 
> Dr. Neal Whitman
> Lecturer, ESL Composition
> School of Teaching and Learning
> College of Education and Human Ecology
> Arps Hall
> 1945 North High Street
> whitman.11 at osu.edu
> (614) 260-1622
> 
> 
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