The Environmental Protection Agency frequently puts

[RonPurewal]

You're welcome.

[JaneJ740]

Q2,
as beautiful a gift as [right]
as beautiful gifts as [wrong] --> gifts as beautiful as [right]
am i right?

Yes.[/quote]

Could someone please clarify it? I understand why "gifts as beautiful as" is right. But why "as beautiful a gift" is also right and why "as beautiful gifts as" is wrong? "beautiful" is not the word like "many" "few" "much" "little", why "beautiful" can be put in the formula like " as much NOUN as" ?

Thanks.

[jlucero]

Q2,
as beautiful a gift as [right]
as beautiful gifts as [wrong] --> gifts as beautiful as [right]
am i right?

Yes.

Could someone please clarify it? I understand why "gifts as beautiful as" is right. But why "as beautiful a gift" is also right and why "as beautiful gifts as" is wrong? "beautiful" is not the word like "many" "few" "much" "little", why "beautiful" can be put in the formula like " as much NOUN as" ?

Thanks.[/quote]

The idiom is "as X as". Whatever ADJECTIVE you put between the two words as, that's what you're comparing. When you put beautiful in between, you are comparing the beauty of two things:

She is as beautiful as a princess.

You can't put a simple noun within that expression and have it make sense:

She is as beautiful princess as...
beautiful princess is a noun, so you're misusing the idiom.

On the other hand, if you're comparing how she is beautiful in two different roles, you're still comparing her beauty:

She is as beautiful of a princess as she is a person.

Idioms- memorize em, because they don't really always make sense when you think too much about em.

[JaneJ740]

Thank you so much Joe~~

[tim]

:)

[FanPurewal]

Q1, so, [revised] as little a risk as one chance in a million of causing is wrong. Right?

Yes, that would be wrong.

Q2,
as beautiful a gift as [right]
as beautiful gifts as [wrong] --> gifts as beautiful as [right]
am i right?

Yes.

sorry ron, i have seen the post of lucero, but i still do not understand your reply.

Q1:as little a risk as
it just fits in the formula-
as many NOUNs as...
as few NOUNs as...
as much NOUN as...
as little NOUN as..., why is it wrong?

Q2:as beautiful a gift as [right]
as beautiful gifts as [wrong]

why is the plural (gifts) wrong?

actually, i totally can not find the differences. can you please clarify?

thank you in advance.

[tim]

If these do not make sense to you, just memorize the rules and go from there.

[FuM520]

whoa, you guys are missing the main point here: the word whose idiomatic usage is being tested is risk, not chance.

this is a bit hard to see in this particular sentence, so here's an analogy (which i'm making up on the spot - not part of an official question):
as small a collection as three pirated albums has occasionally drawn the attention of the recording industry.
in this case, 'collection', not 'albums', is the subject of 'has drawn' (which can be inferred from the fact that 'has' is singular).
this is the case because this sentence is equivalent to the following rearranged version:
a collection as small as three pirated albums has occasionally drawn the attention of the recording industry.

--

the same reasoning applies here; you're looking for idiomatic usage that agrees with 'risk', not 'chance'.

--

the last poster is correct in one sense, which is that there are correct idiomatic usages of 'chance to'.
HOWEVER,
the last poster is incorrect in this particular scenario, because 'chance to' is NOT used when 'chance' refers to a mathematical probability (as it does in this context). in the case of mathematical probabilities, you can only use 'chance of'.
for instance, you can't say this treatment has a 70% chance to cure the disease; you have to say chance of curing.

hth!

Hi, Ron

Why you use "as small a collection as "

The OA in this sentence just use " as little risk as" instead of " as little a risk as"

What's the difference ?

[Sage Pearce-Higgins]

The word 'collection' is a countable noun, and therefore requires an article or determiner when used in the singular. I can't say "There is collection of stamps." In contrast, the word 'risk' can be uncountable, so I can say "There is risk involved in gambling."

To complicate matters further, the word 'risk' can be countable too. Perhaps you can feel the difference in meaning between 'risk' and 'a risk'.