Usage of "lucky enough to"

[Zarxrax]

I am a native English speaker, but recently I was checking over some writing of my non-native friend.

She has a sentence that I think is quite awkward, but I'm not sure why. I have been thinking about it all day now and I've become completely obsessed with it I need to find out if her sentence is correct, or if its incorrect.

Referring to her best friend, she wrote "I really admire her. I was lucky enough to become friends with her".

Is there anything wrong with using "lucky enough to" in this manner?
I'm of the opinion that this makes it sound as if one has to be lucky in order to become friends with that person.

If it were a different situation, such as "I was lucky enough to meet President Obama", this would clearly be correct usage of the phrase, as its a situation that many people might consider to be "lucky". But just meeting a normal person doesn't strike me as particularly "lucky", and so that's why I think her sentence is strange. I think it would be better to write something like "I was so lucky to have..."

 

[5jj]

Referring to her best friend, she wrote "I really admire her. I was lucky enough to become friends with her".

Is there anything wrong with using "lucky enough to" in this manner?
I'm of the opinion that this makes it sound as if one has to be lucky in order to become friends with that person.

If it were a different situation, such as "I was lucky enough to meet President Obama", this would clearly be correct usage of the phrase, as its a situation that many people might consider to be "lucky". But just meeting a normal person doesn't strike me as particularly "lucky", and so that's why I think her sentence is strange. I think it would be better to write something like "I was so lucky to have..."

Your friend's words do sound a little strange if you think about them. However, if she had uttered them in conversation, instead of writing them in a letter, I doubt if anyone would have noticed. I would not call them 'incorrect'.

 

[BobK]

Your friend's words do sound a little strange if you think about them. However, if she had uttered them in conversation, instead of writing them in a letter, I doubt if anyone would have noticed. I would not call them 'incorrect'.

:up: I think the natural (though perhaps unEnglish!) way to express this would be 'I had the good fortune to meet...' - those words seem to me to avoid the implication of 'I was lucky enough' [which, as you say, suggests that it was the sort of experience that anyone might aspire to share].

b