There Is No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.

ForumsGrammar & Sentence Structure
  •  1
+0

(1) There is no such thing as a free lunch.
(2) There is no thing such as a free lunch.

Question: Why is (2) incorrect?

A native speaker of English says that (2) is correct.


+1
PhotonWhy is (2) incorrect?

It's not incorrect. (And it actually occurs in Through My Christian Prism, or at the Port Rail, by Larry Clayton.) It's unexpected.

The word order shown in (1) is the expected one.

See

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=no+thing+such+as%2C+no+such+thing+as&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=3&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cno%20thing%20such%20as%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cno%20such%20thing%20as%3B%2Cc0#t1%3B%2Cno%20thing%20such%20as%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cno%20such%20thing%20as%3B%2Cc0

CJ

Comments  
Students: We have free audio pronunciation exercises.

Thanks, Califjim.


PhotonA native speaker of English says that (2) is correct.

And now two say that, but a third, this one, says it's wrong if you mean that a free lunch does not exist. It's wrong because nobody ever says it that way.

Answer this Question

Guides