Could This Be Any Funner?
Yes, It’s Daylights time again. After spending a couple hours at Panera Bread with a red pen and a stack of articles I feel ready to rant about grammar. I don’t mind correcting the writers’ grammer — I get paid pretty well to do it. But it does make me wonder what is going through their minds when half of an article is not in complete sentences or when the word “Umm” actually appears in print.
…Or when one the writers uses the word “Funner.” Yes, that word your third grade Language Arts teacher probably told you is not really a word appeared in an article written by one of the Daylights authors.
I got home and realized I wasn’t sure exactly why “funner” is not considered correct useage. While I do have an English degree and do some semi-professional editing, I’ve actually not taken many classes on grammar and I have a hard time remembering what term belongs to what error. I usually just know what sounds right or wrong, and what to do to fix commom mistakes…and which reference books to use when I’m not sure how to resolve a sticky punctuation or capitalization question.
So, I googled for “funner” and found a couple of interesting articles. Apparently the problem is that “fun” was originally only a noun, but has gradually morphed into an adjective as well. Many language experts are unhappy about this, hence “funner” and “funnest” are not meant to be used in formal English. The writer of the latter article believes this change in the English language is a part of it’s natural development, and some day “funner” will take it’s place with other, once improper phrases in the English language. Perhaps by the time Madeline is writing devotional articles, it will be an okay thing to write…or it may languish in the murky water where “hopefully” (used in the context of “I hope”) now resides — almost correct but not quite acceptable in formal writing.
Either way, here’s hoping for a funner day tomorrow as I hopefully finish the Winter Daylights issue. 