"Too short a time" or "Too short of a time"? [duplicate]

Solution 1:

Zwicky, in Exceptional Degree Markers, describes the

too big of a dog

expression as being confined to [some] American dialects (p 113; see also footnotes). He seems to criticise the usage, saying that 'Clearly, of is now something more than a mere preposition. It's a virus.' He links to Abney (who claims it is dialectic) and Radford (who comments

'Abney (1987: 324) notes that in non-standard forms of English we find structures such as the following: (37)

a. too big of a house b. as nice of a man c. how long of a board'

), and mentions some 'mildly alarmed non-linguists'.

In Language Log: Bundling, he gives the following examples of and comments on 'intrusive of':

On to "intrusive" of. Here, many commenters bundle P + of

(in alongside/inside/off/out/outside of)

together the of that appears in one variant of exceptional degree modification (the much-reviled too big of a dog as an alternative to too big a dog), but the two phenomena have nothing to do with one another beyond that of.

There's extensive discussion of the five P + of cases above in this course handout of mine [qv]. For these, there’s a separate story for each one (though some handbooks recommend against P + of in general): plain out is extremely restricted; outside of is not colloquial (except in one sense); off of is somewhat on the conversational side; etc. Off of is the combination that gets the heaviest criticism, though I don't think that on the evidence of actual use, it can be classified as non-standard — on the colloquial side, but not non-standard.

Admittedly, this is 25-30 years old, but the descriptors 'dialectic', 'non-standard', 'mildly alarming' and even 'a virus' and 'much reviled' should perhaps urge care in using this construction.