The phrase "a startling combination" is correct and usable in written English.
You can use it to describe a mix of elements that is surprising or unexpected.
Example: "The dish featured a startling combination of sweet and savory flavors that delighted the diners."
Alternatives: "an astonishing mix" or "a surprising blend."
And Lotto awards them all the same gift: a startling combination of intensity and profundity.
LIFE, Richard Goodman writes, "is a startling combination of the unexpected and the inconceivable.
Both works are done with a startling combination of sensitivity and panache.
The cake, which is served at the restaurant for birthdays and anniversaries, is a startling combination of sweet and peppery.
– but also because the Turkish fighter Servet Tazegul won the men's 68kg category with a startling combination of precision, power and no little pizzazz.
On the TV, the music (always too heart-wrenching and drummy and hard to ignore) and the dancing (always too sexy and fancy and hard to ignore) seemed both foreign and familiar, a startling combination.
Ms. Fuku's catalog says that Roso Fukuhara's work was not published in his lifetime, yet he was a pioneer of photographic modernism: a rather startling combination.
But there were a few startling combinations.
The startling combination was just one of the things that made 'Sick 2 Def' stand out on last year's Run The Road 2 grime compilation; his verbal dexterity and utter conviction were two more.
To overcome this startling combination and to save his fortresses, the king needed the military strength of the southern German princes Rudolf of Rheinfelden, duke of Swabia; Welf IV, duke (as Welf I) of Bavaria; and Berthold of Zähringen, duke of Carinthia.
The fun of the piece is playing around with different possibilities, looking for that witty or startling combination that will light up the neocortex.
