Changing Noun to Adjective using "of"

Question

Is it possible to change Nouns to Adjective by adding "of" before the noun? Like:

of help = helpful => not of any help = not helpful
of interest = interesting => of a lot of interest = very interesting
of problem = problematic => of a lot of problem = very problematic
of no use = not useful => it's of no use = it's not useful
of no importance = not important => It's of no importance to me = it's not important to me

I am wondering if there is any case where this method doesn't work.

Update: Let me rephrase my question this way: Can this rule be applied to those nouns that already have a meaningful adjective? I mean, the noun book does not have any adjective, so I don't expect of book to be a meaningful adjective! My question targets only those nouns that have a known adjective.

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Update 2: Some Ngram diagrams:

"not important to" vs "of no importance to"
"not useful to" vs "of no use to"
"not helpful to" vs "of no help to"
"not valuable to" vs "of no value to"
"not interesting to" vs "of no interest to"

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Update 3: I just came across the following sentence in wikibooks:

Of special mention are the shift operators

I think "of special mention" here means "specially mentionable". Doesn't it?

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Update 4: Yet another example I found in here:

Please post any question that you feel is of worth and the reason why.

I think "of worth" here means "worthwhile" or "worthy".

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Update 5: A comment posted here:

Then two-step is not of any use to you. Two-step is for personal computers and apps that only you would use.

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Update 6: Another example from here:

Assuming all the devices in your signal path are of more or less comparable quality

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Update 7: Another example from a book I recently read:

Of what use is talking about interests, options, and standards if the other side has a stronger bargaining position?

Answer 1

I believe the answer to your question hinges on whether it's a mass noun or a count noun. You generally can't use "of" to turn a count noun into an adjective phrase.

• "of book" doesn't work because "book" is a count noun.
• "of assistance" works because "assistance" is a mass noun.

There may be exceptions to this, but I'm sure this rule will stand you in good stead, in the vast majority of cases.

Answer 2

The question clearly asks about all nouns, so the answer is clearly no. There will be many exceptions to the transformation you suggest. A person of interest, for example, does not have the same (not to mention exact) meaning as an interesting person.

Answer 3

You can make an "adjective phrase" out of any or almost any noun by putting "of" in front of it, possibly including an article between the "of" and the noun, but exactly what the result means depends on context.

Usually you turn it into a possessive. "The top of the mountain" means the same as "the mountain's top"; "the creator of Stackexchange" means the same as "Stackexchange's creator"; etc.

Other times the construction has its own connotations. Several of your examples fall in this category. "A subject of interest" doesn't mean a subject belonging to "the interest" but rather "an interesting subject". "A man of importance" means "an important man". Etc. As Eduardo alludes to, "A person of interest" does not mean "an interesting person" but rather is a very specific idiom meaning "a person that the police suspect of being involved in a crime but without enough evidence that they feel justified in calling him a suspect". On the other hand, "a subject of interest to me" means "a subject that I am interested in".

By the way, several of your examples don't mean what you seem to think they mean.

"Of help" does not mean "helpful". A native speaker would not say, "This screwdriver was a tool of help" as an alternative to "This screwdriver was a helpful tool." You can say that someone or something was "a source of help", meaning that's where you got your help from, but that's not the same thing as "a helpful source", which means a resource that was of particular value. "Source of help" usually implies emotional support. Like if you said, "Sally was a source of help when I was trying to quit smoking", you most likely mean that she provided encouragment. But "Sally was a helpful source when I was trying to quit smoking" would mean that she gave you information.

A native speaker would not say, "This is a project of problem" to mean that the project is running into many difficulties. He might say "This is a problematic project", or more likely "This project has a lot of problems." I really can't think of a case where you'd say "of problem". You could say "of the problem" to mean "having to do with the problem". Like, "Here is the cause of your problem" means the same as "Here is your problem's cause."

People do occasionally say things like, "This is a book of no use" meaning the same thing as "This is a useless book", or "It was a town of no importance" meaning "It was an unimportant town". The "of X" version here is used to sound more poetic. The usage is pretty rare and should not be considered a routine substitute.

Answer 4

Some counts from Google Books for "of no xxx to me"...

importance 26100, value 23100, consequence 32500, benefit 5490, use 183000

This clearly shows the construction is very common, though I can't disagree with @John assertion that it's a somewhat "formal" usage. I must admit that I searched for negated forms first because I expected them to be more common; I was a bit surprised to find the counts were even higher when I searched again without "no". I even checked again restricting the search to 21st century thinking usage might have changed over time, but the pattern remains.

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Addressing OP's specific (revised) question, It's irrelevant whether the "quality/property" noun qqqq has an associated adjectival form or not. Problem isn't a "quality"; it can't be used this way.

Grammatically, you can refer to "the qqqq of xxxx" for any property qqqq that xxxx has.

For example, Jean Plaidy's they talked of the cleverness of John, or Gloria Vanderbilt's The fatness of him always put me off are both grammatically fine.

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However, I think many will agree those examples are somewhat unusual/florid. The best way I can think of to define which attributes qqqq are "unexceptional" in this construction is to say:

Idiomatically, use "the qqqq of xxxx" only if qqqq has xxxx has by virtue of people's opinions.

Even the somewhat "poetic" case a man / woman of substance implies in the opinion of society.

Edit: I note Eduardo's distinction between a person of interest and an interesting person. It's "interesting" (not usually "of interest") to note that the first form invariably means of interest to society's formal representatives (police, the legal system, etc.). Obviously, however we phrase it, any "interest" can only be shown by other people, but I still think this usage backs up my point.

I suggest when someone is described as interesting, this carries more of an implication that the "interestingness" is more "intrinsic" (in effect, inherently interesting to all). By contrast, using of interest strongly implies to somebody/some people, leading us to associate this construction more with people speaking on behalf of investigatory bodies, etc.

I've marked this answer "community wiki"; if anyone else can expand on it, please feel free.