So much fun

[Barb_D]

I've merged the threads. There was no point in having two. I've also changed the title to reflect its content.

[emsr2d2]

Yes, but now it is becoming exclusively an adjective. The youngsters I've been trying to talk to no longer recognize the noun usage at all. That is the change I am talking about.

I was also trying to draw our new member into a discussion about the prescriptive versus the descriptive approach to language.

So if you asked those youngsters "Did you have fun last night?", would they look at you with incomprehension and say "What do you mean? You can't have fun! It's an adjective, not a noun!" or would they have no problem with the question and say "Yes, I had a lot of fun last night"? If the latter is true, then they have no problem recognising the noun usage.

[probus]

Today I interviewed one of those users, one of my daughters, the holder of an M.A. in English. My question was whether she thought fun was primarily a noun or an adjective. She said that although she would understand a sentence in which fun was used as a noun, she would never use it herself except as an adjective. And she thought that went for her friends as well.

[Raymott]

Fun has been an adjective since 1846. The "young people" using it that way are no so young, unless you are Methuselah.

That's true. But "It's so fun" is recent, at least here (maybe 15-20 years). I wouldn't use it either.

[Mr_Ben]

Today I interviewed one of those users, one of my daughters, the holder of an M.A. in English. My question was whether she thought fun was primarily a noun or an adjective. She said that although she would understand a sentence in which fun was used as a noun, she would never use it herself except as an adjective. And she thought that went for her friends as well.

This stinks of participant bias to me. Nobody uses the phrase, "Have fun!" anymore? This is why we have corpora, so we don't have to rely on our own biases.

[5jj]

This stinks of participant bias to me. Nobody uses the phrase, "Have fun!" anymore? This is why we have corpora, so we don't have to rely on our own biases.

I think we can manage without such words as 'stinks' with regard to other people's posts. Probus made no pretence of claiming that his message was anything but personal experience.

All of those who respond regularly here consult grammars, dictionaries, corpora, etc. We also enjoy informal exchanges of personal experience.

[Mr_Ben]

I think we can manage without such words as 'stinks' with regard to other people's posts. Probus made no pretence of claiming that his message was anything but personal experience.

All of those who respond regularly here consult grammars, dictionaries, corpora, etc. We also enjoy informal exchanges of personal experience.

I apologize for the word choice and I didn't mean to disparage Probus, I was trying to refer to the comment by his daughter. What I meant was that it seemed to be the kind of "prescriptive blanket statement of opinion dressed up as fact" that native speakers like to make about grammar. My comment about using corpora was for the readers of this forum who are learning the language and need a more reliable source than people's opinions.

I wrote my post rather hastily and the message didn't come through well as a result. Sorry for that!

[Barb_D]

I too had thought about "Have fun!" at some point after my last contribution.

[Mr_Ben]

I too had thought about "Have fun!" at some point after my last contribution.

And on the other side of the coin, for the poster who said s/he would never use fun as an adjective, we have expressions like, "I'd like to do something fun this weekend" and "How was the party? Was it fun?"