a fun that

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joham

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In the second sentence (in blue) of the following paragraph, can we change it into '... it's fun/ it's the fun that has evidently come down to us from times immemorial'? Thank you in advance.

Right then it hit me: the fun of going through turns didn't come so much from the thrill of speed as it came from the challenge of balancing. What's more, it's a fun that has evidently come down to us from times immemorial.
 

tedtmc

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can we change it into '... it's fun/ it's the fun

You would change the meaning of the sentence if you do that.

The writer couldn't pinpoint the special feeling of fun that he experienced, hence the indefinite article was used.

not a teacher
 

BobK

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:up: joham - you could think of it as 'it's a [source of (and the source is unspecified)] fun...'

(Incidentally, in B Eng it's 'time immmemorial' - BNC has no instance with the plural. The option is there in Am Eng, though in COCA the plural outnumbers the singular 191 to 5: Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) )

b
 
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