personality

[Verona_82]

Hello,

Looking through tests in one of my books, I ran into the following sentence:

Lynn ___ an outgoing personality.

1) is 2) has 3) does

Having consulted my dictionary, I found out that both be and have collocate with 'personality'. The key gives 'has'. Is 'have a personality' just more common or is that a bad question?

Thank you in advance.

 

[Khosro]

Hello,

Looking through tests in one of my books, I ran into the following sentence:

Lynn ___ an outgoing personality.

1) is 2) has 3) does

Having consulted my dictionary, I found out that both be and have collocate with 'personality'. The key gives 'has'. Is 'have a personality' just more common or is that a bad question?

Thank you in advance.

1-It's not a bad question.
2-"Lynn has an outgoing personality" is correct.
3- "personality" has different meanings. Sometimes it means "celebrity". You can say that someone is a personality. But when you say "outgoing personality" it is almost obvious that you can not use "is".
4- Are you using a collocation dictionary?
5- Note that collocation is in close relationship with meaning.

 

[engee30]

Hello,

Looking through tests in one of my books, I ran into the following sentence:

Lynn ___ an outgoing personality.

1) is 2) has 3) does

Having consulted my dictionary, I found out that both be and have collocate with 'personality'. The key gives 'has'. Is 'have a personality' just more common or is that a bad question?

Thank you in advance.

♥♦♣♠ NOT A TEACHER ♥♦♣♠
In this case, only 2 works well for the sentence - here, personality means nature, the way in which a person (Lynn in this case) behaves and/or feels.
You can say that someone has or is a personality, meaning that their character is strong and usually influencial over other people.

 

[Coolfootluke]

Hello,

Looking through tests in one of my books, I ran into the following sentence:

Lynn ___ an outgoing personality.

1) is 2) has 3) does

Having consulted my dictionary, I found out that both be and have collocate with 'personality'. The key gives 'has'. Is 'have a personality' just more common or is that a bad question?

Thank you in advance.

I am not a teacher.

If you wanted to use "be" there, you would not use "personality", you would use "person": "Lynn is an outgoing person." "Personality" is possible there, but it would sound like you were trying to be clever. Only "has" is natural there, and so the question is hard, not bad.

With "is", "personality" often means something like "celebrity" or "personage" and often takes an adjective: "Jack Rumsford is one of the foremost personalities in the daytime television pantheon." (Don't Google him---I just now made him up.)

 

[Verona_82]

Thank you.

His wife has a strong personality.
Leos are strong, dominant personalities.

I took the examples from a dictionary and a book - and I don't see much difference between the two..

 

[Khosro]

Hmm.

His wife has a strong personality.
Leos are strong, dominant personalities.

Engee, I don't see much difference between the two.

I don't know what engee thinks about it. I think you are right, but what came in your question was "outgoing personality", not "strong" or "dominant". Don't see it as a grammar question, it's about meaning.

 

[bhaisahab]

Hmm.

His wife has a strong personality.
Leos are strong, dominant personalities.

Engee, I don't see much difference between the two.

"Leos have strong, dominant personalities;"

 

[engee30]

Hmm.

His wife has a strong personality.
Leos are strong, dominant personalities.

Engee, I don't see much difference between the two.

Nor do I, Verona_82. :up:

 

[Verona_82]

I made some changes to my second post after I saw Coolfluteluke's. Ok, Khosro, I feel the same way about 'outgoing'; I wouldn't have used 'be' there either. When translated into my language, 'personality' is used with 'be', not 'have' - that could be the reason for confusion.