Not that big a deal

Open Forum in English
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And they asked me just to go out, so I said okay. It’s really not that big a deal.

Question:
I’ve learned “It’s not a big deal”, “no big deal”, but when I saw the sentence below, I got a little confused.

So it is okay to change word order like that, “it’s really not that big a deal”?
We don’t need to use “of” in front of “a deal” (It’s really not that big of a deal)?

Thank you!!!

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Idiomatic usage! And as William Shakespeare noted, the English language is ‘slippery’. Quite a controversy over which of these trajectories is correct, as there is considerable variance with American English and British English (and several other types of English…).
Have a look on this issue at

Personal preference probably rules on this one. My preference is that the ‘of’ is superfluous and sounds a little affected…

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I have heard (and used) it both ways in American English. Locally, I don’t think it’s that big of a deal which is used. But I would know you were not from here. If that’s a big deal to you.

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