not so good (Noun) - where to put the article?

English translation: Not so good a man

12:42 Aug 11, 2010

English language (monolingual) [Non-PRO]
Art/Literary - Linguistics / grammar

English term or phrase: not so good (Noun) - where to put the article?

a refresher needed -

Not so good a man OR A not so good man,

where do I put the article here?

the phrase is to be used as a strory title

TIA

danya KudoZ activity Questions: 98 (none open) (7 closed without grading) Answers: 1789
Local time: 11:36

Selected answer:Not so good a man

Explanation:
English does allow stringing together words to form one concept. You could say a not-very-good man. But not-so-good doesn't work very well as such a string. In contrast, there is a certain poetic flavour to Not So Good a Man as a title. (No hyphens needed because this is understood as a phrase preceded by He is...)

If you decide the opposite way, however, and choose A Not-So-good Man as the title, please include hyphens.

Selected response from:

Joshua Wolfe
Local time: 04:36

Grading comment

thank you!
2 KudoZ points were awarded for this answer

SUMMARY OF ALL EXPLANATIONS PROVIDED

4 +7

Not such a good man

Tony M

4 +3

Not so good a man

Joshua Wolfe

depends on sentence structure

Maja Basara

5 -3

no article i suggest

silifke63 (X)

Discussion entries: 4

Answers

6 mins confidence:

peer agreement (net): -3

not so good (noun) - where to put the article? no article i suggest

Explanation:
"not so good man"
it would be a right choce.
hth

silifke63 (X)
Native speaker of:

Turkish

13 mins confidence:

not so good (noun) - where to put the article? depends on sentence structure

Explanation:
There's a semantic difference.

What is your context?

Example sentence(s):

A not so good man would have took advantage of the situation.
He not so good a man as you seem to think.

Maja Basara
Croatia
Local time: 10:36
Native speaker of: Croatian

16 mins confidence:

peer agreement (net): +7

not so good (noun) - where to put the article? Not such a good man

Explanation:
It really all depends on what you are trying to say, and what kind of emphasis you wish to place on it; in addition to both your suggestions (either of which could work OK), my suggestion above might be another option to consider.

'not so good a man...' could be followed, for example, by '...as one might be led to believe by his publicist'

'a not so good man' sounds a little awkward in EN, but is still possible, with a little stretching of the stylistic imagination.

My own suggestion probably sounds more natural, using 'such' (the more correct adverb form, I believe) — and could be used with ideas like 'not such a good man after all'

I think you probably need to reflect on just what connotation you might wish to put on this ... what is the unsaid remark that would follow (if any)?

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 22 mins (2010-08-11 13:05:35 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

None of the fragments you are considering are whole sentences in their own right, which is why the answer to your question depends entirely on the structure of the surrounding sentence — you cannot simply take this phrase in isolation.

It might help you to try adding the hyphens, to show where 'not so good' is functioning as an adjective:

"In the end, it was a not-so-cheap bargain"

"In the end, we found it was not so cheap a bargain as we'd at first hoped"

To use your own examples:

"Not so sexy a girl as the advert made out"

"A not-so-handsome guy can still take a pride in his appearance".

Tony M
France
Local time: 10:36
Native speaker of: