Usage of "of"

Question

I got the following sentence as a part of an answer for one of my questions. However, I cannot the usage of "of" in the following sentence. In fact the only two such phrases that I knew are "be of paramount importance" and "be of utmost importance". Frankly, I though these are fixed expressions. Nevertheless, after I got this sentence, I realized that there might be other words that I could use in the same way. Therefore, I would really appreciate it if someone could let me know what are the grammar rules associated with the usage of "of" in the following sentence. Furthermore, please give me a link to learn about it further.

Climate change and traffic congestion are issues of global importance.

GPY · Accepted Answer

This is a pattern that can be used with a number of nouns in order to express an adjectival meaning. For example, a thing can be:

of importance (= important)
of use (= useful)
of interest (= interesting)
of note (= noteworthy)
of concern (= concerning)
etc.

I'm not sure that there is any predictable way to tell which words can be used in this way. You may have to learn them individually.

Modifiers such as "paramount", "utmost" or "global" are not central to the expressions, and can be used quite freely where they make sense:

of limited interest
of universal importance
of particular note
of local concern
etc.

Usage of "of"

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