The phrase "a startling thing to" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used when introducing a surprising or unexpected action or statement that follows the phrase.
Example: "It was a startling thing to hear that she had won the award without any prior notice."
Alternatives: "an astonishing thing to" or "a shocking thing to".
"That is rather a startling thing to say, but it is our conclusion".
That this is a startling thing to say is the result of years of back-and-forth argument between powerful factions.
It's a startling thing to see erupting through the tree canopy, which otherwise extends for miles, punctuated only by the occasional industrial shed and shining metal chimney.
"It is a startling thing to hear an American speak as frankly and un-self-servingly about race," Janny Scott said here last year.
It is a startling thing to hear an American speak as frankly and un-self-servingly about race as Debra J. Dickerson does in "An American Story," her memoir of her first 35 years, in which she lurches from ghetto misfit and two-time dropout to Air Force trainee, Pentagon junior officer and Harvard Law School graduate.
It's a startling thing to hear from Ms. Silverman, who in January created an Internet sensation with a music video in which she declared, in the starkest possible language, that she was having a torrid affair with the actor Matt Damon.
"The startling thing to me was that a very large room was filled -- packed," Dr. Hern said.
A startling thing in Lewis's letters to other believers is how much energy and practical advice is dispensed about how to keep your belief going: they are constantly writing to each other about the state of their beliefs, as chronic sinus sufferers might write to each other about the state of their noses.
Players like Al Sontag, a pitcher signed by the Bluefish in March, are humble -- a startling thing in itself in professional sports.
