So/such

Question

alt.usage.english has failed so far to answer it, that is why I dare to bother you. Please, help me.
We can say
Such a beautifiul house
Such beautiful houses
So beautiful
So beautiful a house
but is it possible to say
So beautiful houses?..to my knowledge, no.
Is it a rule that
so beautiful a house must be only singular?
Regards,
Pawel
Poland
all the best in the New Year 2006

Usenet · Accepted Answer

Give me some time on this and I'll lay something out.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]alt.usage.english has failed so far to answer it, that is why I dare to bother you. Please, help me. We ... that so beautiful a house must be only singular? Regards, Pawel Poland all the best in the New Year 2006[/nq]
So beautiful the houses, so long the nights,
so happy the times, etc are grammatically correct.

It's also correct to say all above in the singular.

So beautiful the house, so long the night,
so happy the time.
Sometimes 'the' is the definite article with a singular.

'So beautiful the house' as opposed to 'So beautiful a house.'

It always has to be 'the' with a plural.
You can't say grammatically, 'So beautiful a houses.'

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]alt.usage.english has failed so far to answer it, that is why I dare to bother you. Please, help me. We ... that so beautiful a house must be only singular? Regards, Pawel Poland all the best in the New Year 2006[/nq]
It's all in how it's worded. Your first four examples are correct (even if the fourth seems a bit awkward there's nothing technically wrong with it).
What you're trying to achieve could be:
Houses so beautiful (now probably looking for a 'that' and an action: "that they stop my heart"; "that they freeze my checkbook", etc.)

Alternatively: "So beautiful: houses, gardens, shady trees ..." etc. (Though it still seems a bit forced to my ear.) But there is absolutely nothing wrong, forced or awkward about simple "houses so beautiful", as long as it's included in a context that makes sense.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]alt.usage.english has failed so far to answer it, that is why I dare to bother you. Please, help me. We ... that so beautiful a house must be only singular? Regards, Pawel Poland all the best in the New Year 2006[/nq]
This question was not as difficult as I originally thought. I felt I would need to lay out a treatment of "so" and "such" in general. But this is rather more interesting. So far, Pawel, two people have answered your post. As you are about to see, I completely disagree with John Ramsey. Who should you believe? The truth is, you should believe very little and trust even less of what faceless strangers on the Usenet tell you.
Thankfully, though, as a competent language teacher, I have a bookshelf full of reference material sitting across my desk from me, and I'm going to quote from a book that you should be able to find rather easily in Poland.
The following is taken from a book called Practical English Usage , 2nd edition, by Michael Swan, Oxford University Press, 1995.

Section 16, page 12
adjectives: position after as, how, so, too
Normally, adjective go after the article a/an (EXAMPLE: a beautiful voice)
But after as, how, so, too and this/that meaning so, adjective go before a/an.
This structure is common in a formal style.
as/how/so/too/this/that + adjective + a/an + noun
I have as good a voice as you.
How good a pianist was he?
It was so warm a day that I could hardly work.
She is too polite a person to refuse.
I couldn't afford that big a car.
The structure is not possible without a/an.
I like your country it's so beautiful.
(NOT I like your so beautiful country.)
Those girls are too kind to refuse.
(NOT They are too kind girls to refuse.)

Therefore, "so beautiful a house" must be singular because we need a/an in the structure, and a/an is only used with singular countable nouns in English.
Good luck, Pawel. The book's ISBN is 0-19-431197-X. It has recently come out in a third edition, but I haven't bought it yet. If you have a lot of questions like this one, you should buy a copy of it.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]alt.usage.english has failed so far to answer it, that is ... Pawel Poland all the best in the New Year 2006[/nq]
[nq:1]This question was not as difficult as I originally thought. I felt I would need to lay out a treatment ... truth is, you should believe very little and trust even less of what faceless strangers on the Usenet tell you.[/nq]
Mind telling John Ramsay why you 'completely
disagree?' I do happen to think of myself as
a competent language teacher just like you
claim to be.
John Ramsay

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Mind telling John Ramsay why you 'completely disagree?' I do happen to think of myself as a competent language teacher just like you claim to be. John Ramsay[/nq]
(Quote from previous post in the same thread.)
[nq:1]So beautiful the houses, so long the nights, so happy the times, etc are grammatically correct. It's also correct to ... 'So beautiful the house' as opposed to 'So beautiful a house.' It always has to be 'the' with a plural.[/nq]
Pick a line of the above and do five minutes of research at this site:

http://sara.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/lookup.html
"When I see a bird that walks like a duck and swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck."
James Whitcomb Riley

Usenet · Answer

Hardly an adequate reply.
In civilized discussion, when one uses a phrase
such as 'completely disagree' it is customary to
give cogent reasons to the person with whom
you disagree.
This is something you yourself, as an experienced language/ English teacher should know and practice.
If I am wrong, please explain my errors.
As an experienced English teacher you should
certainly be capable of doing so without resorting to ad hominem attacks and evasions such as do some
research.
John Ramsay

Usenet · Answer

Ah, I see. Let us proceed with the "cogent reasons." I refrained from presenting those reasons when I gave my first response in order to give you the chance to life the scales of ignorance from your eyes, as it were. Now, since you demand to be completely embarrassed in the eyes of all and sundry, and your propensity to pull grammatical explanations out of your *** (rather than give learners the respect they deserve) to be fully demonstrated, I will proceed.
Your construction as indicated in your message to the original poster is completely invalid and does not exist in modern English, except in a limited sense with "so long the." That construction is an adverbial clause which is a reduced relative clause, and has absolutely no connection with the question originally asked.

This construction is illustrated below.
First, in a non-reduced form:
The Iranians, who have been for so long the whipping boys of conflicts in the Middle East, are now being pressured to completely give up nuclear research.
You may say, in this limited case:
The Iranians, so long the whipping boys of conflicts in the Middle East, are now being pressured to completely give up nuclear research.

It would have been a simple matter for you to consult the British National Corpus (as indicated indirectly in my message) or even run a simple Google search on the information before you unlocked your word-hoard, let alone open an up-to-date reference text, but instead, you chose the aforementioned ***-pulling approach.

This is evidence of negligent incompetence in your chosen field by any reasonable definition. I thought that you would get the message if I included a common saying whose meaning would not be perfectly clear to the learners on this board. My original rebuke was also carefully couched in the part of message that a learner interested solely in the meat of such messages would most likely skip over, as it clearly is not part of a straightforward grammatical explanation.

The experienced language teachers who are part of this group would, of course, have already figured you out.

So, as you see, I presented no ad hominem attack whatsoever, instead, basing my judgement regarding your competence on the fact that you were too lazy to frame your comment in even a remotely responsible manner.

You blew Pawel off with a *** steer.
Happy New Year, Duck.

Usenet · Answer

The message previously appearing in this thread where this one is now was written in a fit of pique and was in bad taste. I have removed it. Anyone who reads this board regularly knows that I have my moments, and that was one of them. John, you're retired, and it isn't fair to ask you to be up-to-date on modern language corpus research. I admit that your advice to Pawel was legitimate, albeit in a rather limited sense, and I apologize for the confrontational tone of several existing messages in this thread.
I'm not particularly civilized or even civil, I'm afraid.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]The message previously appearing in this thread where this one is now was written in a fit of pique and ... for the confrontational tone of several existing messages in this thread. I'm not particularly civilized or even civil, I'm afraid.[/nq]
Thank you for resorting to a professional tone.
Sometimes style is more important than
substance -:)
If I myself got too strident, I apologize.
It is unseemly for teachers to squabble in
front of students.
I'll share my ideas on this thread with you
via email to forestall possible mutual
embarrassment.
John Ramsay

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