ESL General English Grammar Questions

Re: not much of an issue

Clive — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 00:18:40 GMT

Hi,
I read in the newspapers the following sentences:

1/Sex selection will cease to be of an issue. Don't say it this way.
2/I don't want to place too much of a burden on Ronaldo. Fine
3/Children have too much of a role on in everyday family decisions. 'On' is not correct.

Can I rewrite the above sentences without changing their meanings as follows ?:

1/Sex selection will cease to be an issueThis is the correct way to say it.
2/I don't want to place too much burden on Ronaldo. Say it the way you did above
3/Children have too great a role on everyday family decisions.This is OK, but say 'in' instead of 'on'.

Or perhaps you mean 'influence' instead of 'role'?
You can have too much of an influence on something or too great an influence on something.

Best wishes, Clive

Re: not much of an issue

Mr Wordy — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 00:11:32 GMT

1. "cease to be of an issue" is wrong. It should be "cease to be an issue". Presumably a typo.

2. I would only use "too much" directly with uncountable nouns ("too much cheese", "too much effort", etc.). "Burden" is, to me, always a countable noun, so "too much burden" is wrong; it should be "too much of a burden". Google search suggests that plenty of people don't agree with me though.

3. Either is fine, but it should be "a role in", not "a role on".

Your question is phrased OK, but (sorry, very picky) you have a spurious double space, you don't need a space before the question mark (in my opinion), and I would omit the colon.

not much of an issue

Tuongvan — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 00:03:07 GMT

Hi teachers,
I read in the newspapers the following sentences:

1/Sex selection will cease to be of an issue.
2/I don't want to place too much of a burden on Ronaldo.
3/Children have too much of a role on everyday family decisions.

Can I rewrite the above sentences without changing their meanings as follows ?:

1/Sex selection will cease to be an issue
2/I don't want to place too much burden on Ronaldo.
3/Children have too great a role on everyday family decisions.

By the way, is it ok if I say:"Can I rewrite the above sentences without changing their meanings as follows ?:"

Thank you in advance