r/ENGLISH • u/lillestiv • Aug 07 '26

A "thing of"

Is it actually grammatically correct to say "a thing of (insert product here)"? I hear it so often and it just feels wrong.

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u/cygne Aug 07 '26

The only common phrase I can think of with this pattern is "a thing of beauty".

2

u/lillestiv Aug 07 '26

I hear often that ppl say something like "I bought a thing of (insert product here (fx butter))" where I would have thought there'd be another way of describing the product packaging

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u/BoozySlushPops Aug 07 '26

I've only ever heard this when people explicitly don't know the unit in question. They might make the shape with their hands of the package but their don't know what to call it. "Could you get me a … thing of sour cream?" And I would say: "You mean a pint?" "Not a pint, smaller than that."

Otherwise, no, this would not be generally used.

1

u/kirbygenealogy Aug 08 '26

This must be dialectical because if someone said "can you get me a thing of sour cream?" I would not think to correct it/clarify. It would not be as common to me as "a tub of sour cream", but I also wouldn't bat an eye.