What a + NOUN PHRASE – English Grammar Profiler

Exclamative ‘what’ can precede the indefinite article and is, therefore, a predeterminer.  Here’s a real example you can listen to:

What a surprise!

Listen

Here are the most common examples from corpora and completed with common collocates by AI:

here are the sentences with the most common collocates in bold:

  1. What a great way to save time!
  2. What a waste of money!
  3. What a great idea for a party!
  4. What a way to start the day!
  5. What a bunch of clowns!
  6. What a joke! I can’t believe you said that.
  7. What a shame! I was really looking forward to that.
  8. What a lot of trouble you’ve caused!
  9. What a difference! You look so much better now.
  10. What a wonderful way to end the day!
  11. What a waste! I could have used that money for something else.
  12. What a load of nonsense!
  13. What a mess! I can’t believe I did that.
  14. What a relief! I thought I was going to be late.
  15. What a time to be alive!
  16. What a treat! I’m so glad you’re here.
  17. What a joke! That’s the funniest thing I’ve ever heard.
  18. What a mess! I’m going to have to clean this up.
  19. What a difference a day makes!
  20. What a great place to live!

These sentences are often used in spoken English to convey strong feelings, and they can add a lot of expressiveness and emotion to your language. They’re less common in formal written English, but you might see them in written dialogue or informal writing.  Notice that many of them are followed by adverbial phrases.

Phrases like “to save time”, “for a party”, “to be alive”, etc., are infinitive phrases or prepositional phrases acting as adverbs modifying the noun. They tell us more about the manner, purpose, cause, or result of the noun.

In the English Grammar Profile, A2 point 38 in the category of CLAUSES/exclamations:

‘What a’ + noun phrase and ‘What a’ + noun phrase + clause

However, in the English Vocabulary Profile, ‘what’ is listed at B1 for:

STRONG OPINION: used to give your opinion, especially when you have strong feelings about something
with examples:

  • What rubbish!
  • What a mess!
  • What an awful day!
  • What a beautiful soundtrack!
  • What an interesting fable!

This PELIC student example also includes a following clause ‘it was‘:

What a trip it was.

Japanese female level 5 grammar class.

An iWeb search for:

. What a * *

1 . WHAT A GREAT WAY 1759 2 . WHAT A WASTE OF 1402 3 . WHAT A GREAT IDEA 1092 4 . WHAT A WAY TO 1015 5 . WHAT A BUNCH OF 755 6 . WHAT A JOKE. 686 7 . WHAT A SHAME. 675 8 . WHAT A LOT OF 615 9 . WHAT A DIFFERENCE! 432 10 . WHAT A WONDERFUL WAY 401 11 . WHAT A WASTE. 383 12 . WHAT A LOAD OF 366 13 . WHAT A MESS. 365 14 . WHAT A RELIEF! 363 15 . WHAT A TIME TO 314 16 . WHAT A TREAT! 298 17 . WHAT A JOKE! 292 18 . WHAT A MESS! 284 19 . WHAT A DIFFERENCE A 282

20 . WHAT A GREAT PLACE 250

We used the above results to get some possible collocates for each sentence using AI. It supposedly used the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) to find the most frequent words that follow each phrase. I put the collocates in bold.

  1. WHAT A GREAT WAY to start/end the day/week/year
  2. WHAT A WASTE OF time/money/energy/resources
  3. WHAT A GREAT IDEA for a book/movie/project/gift
  4. WHAT A WAY TO go/live/die/say goodbye
  5. WHAT A BUNCH OF crap/liars/losers/nonsense
  6. WHAT A JOKE. That’s/He’s/She’s/It’s
  7. WHAT A SHAME. I’m/You’re/He’s/She’s
  8. WHAT A LOT OF fun/trouble/work/noise
  9. WHAT A DIFFERENCE! It/That/You/He/She
  10. WHAT A WONDERFUL WAY to spend the day/night/holiday/weekend
  11. WHAT A WASTE. It’s/That’s/He’s/She’s
  12. WHAT A LOAD OF crap/bullshit/garbage/nonsense
  13. WHAT A MESS. It’s/This is/That was/I’m
  14. WHAT A RELIEF! I’m/You’re/He’s/She’s
  15. WHAT A TIME TO be alive/get sick/have a baby/fall in love
  16. WHAT A TREAT! It was/That was/This is/You are
  17. WHAT A JOKE! He’s/She’s/It’s/That’s
  18. WHAT A MESS! We’re/They’re/You’re/I’m
  19. WHAT A DIFFERENCE A day/year/month/week makes!
  20. WHAT A GREAT PLACE to live/work/stay/visit

21 . WHAT A WASTE! 241 22 . WHAT A DIFFERENCE IT 237 23 . WHAT A GREAT TIME 235 24 . WHAT A SHAME! 234 25 . WHAT A DEAL! 228 26 . WHAT A RELIEF. 220 27 . WHAT A DIFFERENCE. 219 28 . WHAT A GREAT OPPORTUNITY 213 29 . WHAT A PIECE OF 202 30 . WHAT A FUN WAY 199 31 . WHAT A GREAT EXPERIENCE 192 32 . WHAT A BLESSING! 189 33 . WHAT A JOY TO 187 34 . WHAT A PAIN! 182 35 . WHAT A SURPRISE! 182 36 . WHAT A GREAT GIFT 176 37 . WHAT A GREAT DAY 175 38 . WHAT A JOY IT 174 39 . WHAT A CONCEPT! 174 40 . WHAT A RELIEF TO 170 41 . WHAT A SHAME THAT 170 42 . WHAT A SURPRISE. 170 43 . WHAT A PAIN. 164 44 . WHAT A BLESSING TO 160 45 . WHAT A DISAPPOINTMENT. 156 46 . WHAT A TREAT TO 156 47 . WHAT A PAIN IN 154 48 . WHAT A PLEASANT SURPRISE 151 49 . WHAT A GREAT PRODUCT 149 50 . WHAT A BETTER WAY 148 51 . WHAT A BLESSING IT 146 52 . WHAT A GUY! 146 53 . WHAT A SHAME, 145 54 . WHAT A NIGHTMARE. 139 55 . WHAT A PERFECT WAY 139 56 . WHAT A GUY. 134 57 . WHAT A WONDERFUL THING 132 58 . WHAT A TREAT. 128 59 . WHAT A CONCEPT. 127 60 . WHAT A PLEASURE TO 126 61 . WHAT A MISTAKE! 121 62 . WHAT A NIGHTMARE! 116 63 . WHAT A GIFT! 115 64 . WHAT A PITY. 115 65 . WHAT A GREAT GUY 112 66 . WHAT A WONDERFUL GIFT 110 67 . WHAT A GREAT JOB 108 68 . WHAT A GREAT FEELING 108 69 . WHAT A BUMMER. 107 70 . WHAT A MISTAKE. 107 71 . WHAT A PRIVILEGE TO 106 72 . WHAT A COINCIDENCE. 105 73 . WHAT A NICE SURPRISE 105 74 . WHAT A FIND! 102 75 . WHAT A DAY! 102 76 . WHAT A BARGAIN! 101 77 . WHAT A TIME SAVER 101 78 . WHAT A COINCIDENCE! 100 79 . WHAT A PITY THAT 100 80 . WHAT A WONDERFUL IDEA 100 81 . WHAT A GREAT THING 97 82 . WHAT A DISAPPOINTMENT! 96 83 . WHAT A WONDERFUL EXPERIENCE 96 84 . WHAT A BLESSING. 93 85 . WHAT A PLEASURE IT 92 86 . WHAT A GREAT STORY 91 87 . WHAT A FANTASTIC WAY 91 88 . WHAT A WONDERFUL, 91 89 . WHAT A BEAUTIFUL PLACE 89 90 . WHAT A SHAME IT 89 91 . WHAT A GREAT AND 88 92 . WHAT A NOVEL IDEA 88 93 . WHAT A CROCK. 85 94 . WHAT A RIP OFF 85 95 . WHAT A PITY! 83 96 . WHAT A BRILLIANT IDEA 82 97 . WHAT A GREAT GROUP 82 98 . WHAT A WONDERFUL SURPRISE 82 99 . WHAT A JOKE, 80

100 . WHAT A DIFFERENCE IN 80

A2:

brilliant,difference,fantastic,gift,guy,idea,mistake,off,

pain,perfect,piece,pity,pleasant,shame,story,surprise,way,wonderful

EXPERT EXAMPLE:

I thought: What a load of tosh.

thesun.co.uk

*higher-level language hides our grammar here.