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The following sentence come from Drag Shergi Mysteries : The Complete Collection by Kimberly Vogel:

The room was such so that there was a lounge at first.

Now, I read this sentence and was wondering if such so that meant such that.

The room was such so that there was a lounge at first.

The room was such that there was a lounge at first.

To me, these two sentences mean the same thing. Is this the case always? Are there exceptions? Why?

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  • I see that you have edited your question. Sometimes errors occur in published books written and edited by native speakers. Typographical errors are a fact of life. You cannot assume that everything written in English is correct: all of us make mistakes.
    – Jeff Morrow
    Commented Feb 13, 2019 at 5:19

2 Answers 2

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Both sentences are a little odd, but they are not actually ungrammatical. They can, however, have different meanings.

First of all, I'll assume that a lounge at first means a lounge at the room's entrance.

(1) The room was such so that there was a lounge at first.

🠆 The room was designed as it was in order to put a lounge at its entrance.

In other words, the room was created as it was because a lounge was desired at its entrance. A lounge being at its entrance was a key factor in its design. Other designs, that wouldn't have put a lounge at its entrance, might have been rejected.

(2) The room was such that there was a lounge at first.

🠆 The layout of the room happened to result in a lounge being at its entrance.

In other words, the room was created in such a way that a lounge happened to be at its entrance. Whether or not a lounge being there was originally intended is unknown.

So, the use of was such so that here can imply intent, while just was such that simply states a fact.

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The first sentence is not idiomatic. The construction is "such that," not "such so that."

The second sentence, consequently, is idiomatic.

Neither sentence, however, makes much sense. One sense of the word "lounge" is of a kind of room. Can a room be part of another room? I doubt it. Now, there is another meaning of "lounge," a type of furniture. Can a room be a piece of furniture? No.

If you are using "lounge" in the sense of furniture, probably what you want is

The first piece of furniture encountered in the room was a lounge.

If you are trying to say that a large room was set up so that the first part of it looked like a lounge, you could say

The first part of the room was arranged as a lounge

or

The first part of the room resembled a lounge

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