be strongly of something ?

F

fatbaby

Senior Member
Beijing
China Chinese
Hi,
I came across this usage from an article on Voice of America site , this news talked about anti whale hunting, and when Japanese delegate insisted on their so-called scientific whale hunting,the Australian minister Peter Garrett said:"We are absolutely strongly of the view that we do not want to see the commercial exploitation of whale populations. We are strongly of the view that this commission needs to focus on the science of conservation, not on the science of killing whales."
I was wondering if the ARE STRONGLY OF SOMETHING pattern is grammatically correct.I think ARE above should be followed by an adjective word, STRONG instead of STRONGLY (adverb) , I mean it should be ARE STRONG OF THE VIEW THAT .....
What do you think?
Thanks.
 
    • "The view" is a noun. " be of + noun" is very common in English.

    It actually changes the noun into an adj.

    Here'' of the view'' just means '' we have the view of ".

    It's just like in Chinese, sometimes we put '' 的'' behind a noun, so the combination looks like an adj.

    Hope it helps.
     
    Thanks, stephent, I am afraid I don't follow yours.please explain similar constructions like below:
    be proud of ..
    be fond of..
    be scared of...
    SO,
    Be strong of ....=strongly support something,( my interpretation)
     
    The common collocation in your sentence is "to be strongly of the view." ("View" does not become an adjective in this collocation.) This collocation means "We believe strongly (that...)."
     
    ''be of + noun'' doesn't equal to the examples you just give.

    Be proud of ---- is " be + adj+ of" , here ''of'' means ''because of ".

    Anyway, I'm not native speaker:) Just wait for better answers.
     
    Thanks again,guys,
    I post this thread just to try to get a confirmation from lots of native speakers here whether this BE STRONGLY OF +NOUN is correct or not in usage or collocation, I know what it meant although I am not sure of its grammatical correctness.
    So, I will wait for more answers.
     
    In this sentence, "of the view" functions as a predicate adjective, describing "we". Here are some examples of predicate adjectives, and of phrases that act as adjectives (that is, which describe the subject):

    We are impressed.
    We are annoyed.
    We are convinced that the world is flat.
    We are of the opinion that whale hunting is bad.

    Adjectives may be modified by adverbs. Thus, both one-word adjectives and adjectival phrases can be modified by adverbs:
    We are greatly impressed.
    We are slightly annoyed.
    We are completely convinced that the world is flat.
    We are strongly of the opinion that whale hunting is bad.

    It is completely grammatical to modfy and adjective or an adjectival phrase with an adverb, and that is what you find in your sentence.
     
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