Sunday, October 10, 2010

Funner is Not a Word

Grammar fun at Disney

I recently returned from a terrific vacation in Disney World. My family and I had a fantastic time, and I had a reprieve from worrying about grammar – or so I thought.

On a late evening bus ride back to our resort from Downtown Disney, I noticed the flashing marquee for Pleasure Island. Its message to passers-by included the word funner. Seriously. My husband thought I was going into full cardiac arrest: “It’s okay, honey. I’m sure that sign is controlled by unschooled elves or something.”

Funner? This bothered me for two major reasons: 1. Dozens of kids would see that sign, which made it seem as though using a non-word is perfectly acceptable, and 2. Since this was the first time in my visits to Disney that I believe English was spoken by the minority of visitors, it seemed to me an ostentatious display of how Americans feel the need to butcher their own language for a world of non-English speakers to see.

Don’t even get me started on the new iPod touch commercial featuring funnest.

*sigh*

I’ll step down from my soapbox now and catch my breath. Certain misuses really get me riled up. I’m a bit of a traditionalist when it comes to the word fun. I don’t use it as an adjective, and I don’t like to hear it used as an adjective. So in my book, you can have fun, but not a fun time. But technically, if you look it up in the dictionary, you’ll find that in informal conversation or writing, using fun as an adjective is acceptable.

So what’s a guru to do? Here’s the thing, folks: grammar and language are fluid things. They change over time. I cringed, for example, last year when Webster decided to add ginormous to its dictionary. To me, it’s a parody of a word, but it’s recognizable nonetheless as a word. On the other hand, snarky is one of my favorite words, and it’s a relative newcomer to the vernacular of the average American, as well.

The same thing happens with usage. Over time, usage changes. Consider, for example, the word text. Until just a decade ago, text was a noun only, and few people would have questioned that. Now, however, with the advent of text messages, text has become a verb, with the jarringly awful-sounding texting and texted forms. Personally, I prefer He sent me a text message to He texted me, but I’ll lose that battle as time goes on.

My advice to those who hear words used in unfamiliar ways is this: try to keep an open mind – more open than mine, anyhow. While blatantly incorrect non-word usage (see funner and funnest above) is irritating, that’s part of how language evolves. I’m certain the first few times ginormous appeared in print it was looked at by many with disdain, but it became commonplace enough for Webster to recognize it as a real word. And Webster doesn’t add words in a willy-nilly fashion; they’re pros, you know.

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