We use the little word ‘of’ all the time – it’s one of the most common words in English. In fact, the four most common words in British English, according to one careful analysis, are;

the 61847

of 29391

and 26817

a 21626

No surprises there. The figure by each word is the number of times it occurs per million words. Add these four figures together and the total is 139,681. This means that of every thousand words we say, on average, about 140,000 are one of these four: that’s about 140 in every thousand, or 14 in every hundred, or 1.4 in every 10.

Look at http://ucrel.lancs.ac.uk/bncfreq/ for more lists of the most common words.

So we use these four words a lot. Here’s my puzzle, though.  If they are very common, why would we want to use them even more?

Take the word of. It’s perfectly clear to say:

(1) Djoković’s win wasn’t that big a surprise. He’s won Wimbledon before.

So why do many speakers say:

(2) Djoković’s win wasn’t that big of a surprise. He’s won Wimbledon before.

What does the extra word ‘of’ add? Why would anyone bother to add it?

Similarly, it isn’t difficult to understand someone who says:

(3) If he’d tried harder, Federer might have won.

So what reason is there for saying, as so many people do:

(4) If he’d of tried harder, Federer might have won.

I’m not objecting to the grammar of examples (2) and (4). If people want to use funny grammar, that’s their right. And examples (2) and (4) are perfectly clear, so that isn’t the problem. It’s the extra word: why bother to use the energy and add the word ‘of’, when the sentence is grammatical and clear without it? What’s the point?

Anyone think of an explanation?