So Fun

We hear that, don't we?  And it rolls off most of us.  But not me.  For me, it acts like those mini-shocks you get during very dry weather, when you forgot that you're wearing something synthetic, and that synthetic something generates an electric charge in the dry air.  This is that pinging reminder that I'm a 20th century person, far removed from the bosom of my 20th century childhood home.

My mother was a strict adherent to traditional English grammar's rules of usage.  Thus, each time we kids opened our mouths to speak, we were subject to a testing of our understanding of those rules.  I'll go way out on a limb and assume that few American households in the 21st century hew to the subjunctive mode in their common conversations.  So that if people in those households heard me say, "If I were he..." I might get a raised eyebrow or furrowed brow.  Or if someone from that other time said, "I hope if anyone wins, I hope that it be she."  I heard a news anchor recently say to a guest, "Thanks for stopping by and sharing with Bill and I."  Ping!  I closed my eyes and let it pass.

Traditional grammar is as much a part of me as my bone marrow.  And unfortunately for me, I have lived long enough to have experienced the contortions American English usage has suffered.  One such suffering has been what has happened to the pleasant and innocent word fun.  This word, like some other English words has viability as various parts of speech.  Commonly people use it as a noun: "We had fun with them."  And that has been from its start, arrived into English from German.
Here's how that  happened and the morphing followed:

"fun (n.)  'diversion, amusement, mirthful sport,' 1727, earlier 'a cheat, trick' (c. 1700), from verb fun (1680s) 'to cheat, hoax,' which is of uncertain origin, probably a variant of Middle English fonnen 'befool' (c. 1400; see fond). Scantly recorded in 18c. and stigmatized by Johnson as 'a low cant word.' Older senses are preserved in phrase to make fun of (1737) and funny money 'counterfeit bills' (1938, though this use of the word may be more for the sake of the rhyme). See also funny. Fun and games 'mirthful carryings-on' is from 1906."   (from Online Etymology Dictionary)

I'm fascinated that the word had its origins and some subsequent usage as a negative signifier. That seems to have been maintained in its verb usage (to cheat).  So fun, in its seeming simplicity, in fact has a very complicated lineage (the wrong kind of lineage for Dr. Johnson).

OK, and now we're in the 21st century, and we're confronted by the so fun construction.  The simplest way to deconstruct this is to observe (a la the 20th century) that a word (for purposes of speed and comfort) has been deleted from the normal expression so much fun, revealing just another ellipsis regimen so popular among American speakers.  We are known internationally as stingy speakers—we speak mostly in single words or brief phrases, very rarely in complete sentences.  For example:  "Are you ready to go?"  "Yep.  All set.”

My guess (based on a professional life studying the language and its changes) is that the ellipsis regimen explains the issue.  But what of the actual grammar?  (For those who might be interested.)  So is commonly an adverbial intensifier (intensifying the meaning of a verb, adjective or adverb).  The logic of traditional grammar would suggest that fun is not a noun in this construction (i.e., a pleasurable experience, perhaps) but rather some form of displaced adjective (displaced from We had a fun time?).  

In any case, as I would say to my writing classes, we should all be aware that if a word has a broad reach of meanings, it actually ceases to function as a channel of communication.  Fun is, so to speak, in the experience of the user of the word.  Some people ask me if I had fun going somewhere or doing something.  In fact, as I've been told, I'm not a terribly joyful person.  I do laugh about and at things, but I usually do that, because those things are absurd, not because they are pleasurable for me.  So, when someone smiles at me and says, "Will you be doing something for fun, today?"  (Though they typically say something fun today.)  I don't really know what to say, because I know that we would not be communicating in the same experiential universe.

When I was in elementary school, I had to be diagnosed by what was probably some sort of speech pathologist.  The diagnosis was "lazy speech."  I guess I mumbled a lot.  This gave my mother something else to focus on in addition to my grammar.  Now we could be careful not only to select the correct usage but also to enunciate more clearly.   (I learned very early the meaning of enunciate.)  And people wonder why I lack a sense of joy.

Well, this has been a nice experience for me, and I hope it has been for you.  I'd even say it has been so fun!