Not that big "a" deal?

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Recently I've noticed people using "of a" / "of an" a lot in places where they really only need to say "of"; for example, someone might say "how big of a deal is that?" instead of "how big a deal is that?"

It seems a bit pointless to me (and I've not heard anyone use it in spoken English, only written, which is very interesting - is it a borrowing from other languages?), but there are circumstances when it is perfectly "proper" English to use "of a"; for example, someone might say "how much of a problem is that?", "how much a problem is that" would be valid, but slightly less preferable.

Does anyone know the proper linguistic name for this? Is there a rule for when it is, or isn't, right to use "of a"?

Your title example is simply and inexcusable poor grammar. "How big a deal" is the correct usage.

You are correct that there are situations where "of" is either acceptable or required. Both of these come from the lingusitic concept of case, which refers to how words (particularly nouns, pronouns and adjectives) relate to other words. In modern English, words other than pronouns do not change form based on whether they are subjects, direct objects, indirect objects, etc. Instead, these relationships are usually created using prepositions (such as "of") and articles (a, an, the). In your examples, the advective "big" is usually associated with discrete objects, and does not require a prepositional phrase. An adjective typically modifying an indiscrete noun, such as "much", ordinarily does require a prepositional phrase. Therefore:
"How much of a problem", but
"How big a problem".

This is, of course, not a hard-and-fast rule. "Of" also has a partitive usage, which is not universal and may apply for discrete and non-discrete nouns alike, based on whether further qualification is required:
"some milk"
"some of the whole milk"
"five apples"
"three of those pears"

"five cards"
"four of a kind"


Other languages, particularly European languages, retain a case structure similar to Old English, where word endings change upon usage. For example, in Serbian, to say one hour (or one o'clock), you say "jedan sat"; literally one hour. In this usage, "sat" (hour) is in the nominative case - the subject - and jedan is an adjective ("one") that agrees in form (masc. singular). To say two hours, you say "dva sata". "Sata" is the singular form of the genitive case, so the literal translation is "two of hour". While three and four follow the same pattern, most larger numbers use a third form - "pet sati" (genitive plural; lit. "five of hours") for 5:00. Slavic languages do not even have articles - there are no equivalents to "a", "an" or "the" - so cases are instrumental (no linguistic pun intended) in communicating the relationships between the "players" in a sentence.

A proper English translation would take into account the way we use prepositions to communicate the information represented by case in other languages, and would use the expression closest in overall meaning to the original. However, a poor translation, or an attempt at translation by someone just learning English, would tend to be more word-for-word literal, introducing grammatical errors. Sometimes these just "catch on" because they don't offend the native ear too much. In other cases, there is insufficient understanding of the grammatical system by the masses for a critical number to revolt at a deliberately or accidentally introduced bit of ungrammatical speech, so the wrongly formed expression begins its path toward idiomhood.

Hope this helps.

Thanks, yes, that's exactly what I was looking for, that the discrete / indiscrete thing is what usually decides which form it should take.

if followed by a word starting with a consonant, it's 'a'
if a vowel, it's 'an'

but, being Southern, we're unusually creative with spelling and grammar...

Thank you Melissa17b.