Learn English – Can we say sentences like “They are so/too good of people”

sentence-structureusage

As far as I know we can say "He is so good a person" for meaning "He is a very good person" or "He is a person who is so good" while we can't say "He is a so good person". Also we can say "He is too good a person" for meaning "He is a person who is too good" while we can't say "He is a too good person".

And again, as far as as I know, we can't say "They are so/too good people". Can I say "They are so/too good of people" like I can say "He is so/too good a person".

I mean, for meaning "They are people who are so good" or "They are very good people", can I say "They are so good of people"? And for meaning "They are people who are too good", can I say "They are too good of people"?

EDIT: I just found many results on Google for "He is too good a person" and "They are too good of people", but there are too few results for their versions with "so" instead of "too". It seems like we can use "too" in those kinds of sentences, but it is wrong to use "so" this way. What do you think?

Best Answer

You can say

He is too good of a person to have done something like that. Are you sure it was him?

He is too good a person to have done something like that. Are you sure it was him?

I hear too good of a {something} a lot (Central Atlantic American English).

It's too good of a deal to pass up.

But I haven't heard this construction used with a plural and without the singular indefinite article a.

They are too good of a team. We don't stand a chance.YES

They are too good of athletes. We don't stand a chance. NO

He is too good of an athlete. I don't stand a chance.YES

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