So i'm arguing with my teacher about this one phrase on my writing exam. I've written: "It's kind of impossible not to like her." And she corrected it to: "it's a kind of impossible not to like her." we both don't know for sure who is right about this any help is very welcome :)
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9“It’s a kind of impossible not to like her” is ungrammatical in normal English. You could make a case for it logically (there can be different kinds of ‘impossible’, and not liking her is just one of those different kinds), but nobody would ever say it in normal conversation.– Janus Bahs JacquetCommented Feb 3, 2019 at 14:38
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Formally, impossible looks like an absolute, meaning that it doesn't admit of gradations such as "90% impossible." But in practice, English speakers and writers often treat it as a quasi-absolute, meaning that some qualifications (such as "more or less impossible," "virtually impossible," and "totally impossible") are generally accepted (or at least widely used), while others (such as "a little bit impossible" and "more impossible than you think") aren't. I would put "kind of impossible" in the informally okay category rather than in the unacceptable category, but I wouldn't use it. ...– Sven YargsCommented Feb 3, 2019 at 20:05
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...As for "It's a kind of impossible," the indefinite article would be more justifiable if impossible were changed to impossibility, but again I wouldn't use it either way. My recommendation would be either to go whole-hog with the claim "It's impossible not to like her"—even though this is almost certainly an exaggeration, given that, say, Timon of Athens might find it possible not to like her—or to steer clear of impossible altogether, with something like. "It's extremely difficult not to like her."– Sven YargsCommented Feb 3, 2019 at 20:05
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This sounds a lot like a line John Cusack would say in some kind of 80s movie. Probably right at the camera.– jimm101Commented Feb 8, 2019 at 19:41
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1 Answer
Your teacher’s use of “a” is totally wrong. If it were “a” then the correct form would be “it would be kind of an impossibility”. Your sentence is correct, but the preferred form would be “to not” instead of “not to”, and “dislike” would be better still. “Nearly” would be better than “kind of”. The best form would be “It is nearly impossible to dislike her.”
