Why say “is of interest” instead of “is interesting“?
‘is of + noun‘ is more formal and in academic writing, we use the noun form of a word more often. More importantly, ‘of+noun’ functions as a noun in this position. Therefore, it can often collocate correctly with modifiers. For example: “greatest interest” is much more common than “greatly interesting”. And the meaning of the superlative is different anyway.
A search in NOW corpus for the frequency:
great interest = 14215 examples
greatest interest = 801 examples
greatly interesting = 4 examples
There are clearly more common adverbs found before “interesting”:
1 REALLY INTERESTING 35466
2 PARTICULARLY INTERESTING 7837
3 GENUINELY INTERESTING 3155
4 ESPECIALLY INTERESTING 2332
5 EXTREMELY INTERESTING 2103
Similarly, ‘greatly’ is relatively common before ‘interested’ and many other -ed adjectives. However, none of the following -ed adjectives fit after the dummy subject ‘it’.
1 GREATLY CONCERNED 1269
2 GREATLY INCREASED 1071
3 GREATLY IMPROVED 1051
4 GREATLY DISAPPOINTED 589
5 GREATLY EXPANDED 555
6 GREATLY ENHANCED 497
7 GREATLY BENEFICIAL 399
8 GREATLY APPRECIATIVE 284
9 GREATLY IMPROVING 267
10 GREATLY SURPRISED 267
11 GREATLY INCREASING 238
12 GREATLY INTERESTED 224
If we search for a common structure where ‘it’ might be referring back or a dummy:
1 IT IS OF CONCERN 434
2 IT IS OF INTEREST 352
3 IT IS OF NOTE 186 C2
If we‘re going to do anything of impact and of note
and make any type of positive change,
we are going to have to make trouble.
4 IT IS OF IMPORTANCE 70
5 IT IS OF BENEFIT 60
A search for:
it is of * interest
the total variations are 420.
We won’t include all of them below. The point is that more than 50% of the time ‘interest’ is premodified in this structure.
1 IT IS OF GREAT INTEREST 85
2 IT IS OF PARTICULAR INTEREST 63
3 IT IS OF PUBLIC INTEREST 41
4 IT IS OF NO INTEREST 40
5 IT IS OF NATIONAL INTEREST 31
6 IT IS OF SPECIAL INTEREST 11
7 IT IS OF SOME INTEREST 11
8 IT IS OF VITAL INTEREST 9
9 IT IS OF CONSIDERABLE INTEREST 7
10 IT IS OF GENERAL INTEREST 7
A search for:
_VB of _NN
1 BE OF INTEREST 13762
Not a very subtle tool, but the results will be of interest to the board.
2 BE OF BENEFIT 3394
3 IS OF CONCERN 3136
4 BE OF CONCERN 3110
5 BE OF SERVICE 2957
6 BE OF HELP 2893
7 IS OF INTEREST 2833
8 BE OF USE 2785 This is B2 in the EVP.
I expect I‘ll find some other way to be of use.
9 ARE OF INTEREST 2766
10 BE OF VALUE 1840
A search in iWeb for pre-modification for our B2 point above:
_VB of * use_N
1 IS OF NO USE 2093
You see, money is of no use to me now.
2 BE OF ANY USE 1951
Meaning if Glyndwr Michael is to be of any use to you at all, he must be in service within three months.
3 BE OF MUCH USE 1169
4 BE OF NO USE 1066
5 ARE OF NO USE 1029
6 BE OF SOME USE 977
7 BE OF GREAT USE 941
8 IS OF LITTLE USE 785
9 BE OF LITTLE USE 510
10 WAS OF NO USE 502
11 ARE OF LITTLE USE 380
12 IS OF LIMITED USE 344
13 BE OF MORE USE 260
14 BE OF LIMITED USE 234
15 WERE OF NO USE 224
16 IS OF GREAT USE 215
17 ARE OF LIMITED USE 214
18 IS OF ANY USE 213
19 ‘S OF NO USE 197
20 IS OF SOME USE 167
21 BE OF PRACTICAL USE 151
22 BE OF GOOD USE 135
23 BE OF PARTICULAR USE 127
24 WAS OF LITTLE USE 111
25 ARE OF GREAT USE 101
*note that (of) can sometimes be omitted.