Optionally flag "somewhat of a"

[hippietrail]

This seems to have become completely normalized from the millennial generation onward. I only started hearing this variant a few years ago on YouTube. (There may be a regional component I'm not aware of.)

It seems to have come about due to combining "something of a " and "somewhat ".

Some organizations might want the traditional style, some writers might be striving to emulate an older style and not realize this phrasing would be an anachronism:

• This may be somewhat of a surprise. → This may be something of a surprise.

Also correct would be "This may be somewhat surprising" but that would be a difficult suggestion to generate automatically I think.

Here's one online discussion I found:

• https://brians.wsu.edu/2016/05/31/somewhat-of-a/