Adjectives and Nouns

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I found this article re-tweeted on the East Norfolk The article is based on the subject of the word "fun" the word is known to be in the dictionary as a noun however many people adapt the word into an "adjective" in sentences. Some people, Jerry Jones for instance, states that the word fun is only not grammatically correct when in a sentence such as "That was fun" because fun is being used as an adjective instead of a noun. He declares in his article that the word fun should only be added into a sentence when structured with the words "that was so much fun" with "much" as a preposition to modify the sentence.

I found this article interesting because we were examining in lesson the changing of vocabulary throughout the years, for example in the last year of 2015 hundreds of words were added to the Oxford Dictionary which shows us how language is expanding continuously. Some examples of words are "Hangry" which is a joining of two words-  Hunger and Angry put the together. The meaning? to convey a sense of being frustrated by not having enough to eat.

I believe that with the increase of new words comes word shiftings, for example the word "Gay" shifted with meaning throughout recent years. Originally the word "gay" portrayed a sense of happiness for example "today was a gay day" however then it turned into a term of sexuality when you are in a relationship or attracted to the same sex. However it took a turn for the worst when the word was then added to young people's vocabulary as being a degrading term and another word for "bad" for example "your shoes are so gay" would mean that the person's shoes are extremely tacky or unimpressive to whomever exclaimed the insult. Yet, people have realised that the word "Gay" should NOT be used as a term of negativity or an insult towards someone and some people have started to stop using it, for example myself and my friends. I now say the word "lame" which is much more appropriate and funny too.

Therefore, the word "fun" should be able to have a semantic change. The word fun may have been used as a noun as in "to have fun" however now people are said to be fun and lively. I think this word is appropriate due to the fact the word "Funful" does not exist and an appropriate adjective for the situation would be "amusing" or "entertaining" which neither are quite the same as the word fun itself. Click here for the thesaurus page on the word fun. The word fun on thesaurus.com is said to be a noun and an adjective giving other synonyms and antonyms for the word.

However the word fun has been demonstrated as an adjective for many years for example "Doing something fun like redecorating your room…is really interesting biz for a teen who loves being busy." was from 1951 OED v. teen n.2. Here we have an informal piece of writing with the word "biz" and the adjective "fun". This post was written over 50 years ago and clearly shows the word class shift from noun to adjective.

Personally, I believe that if someone wants to say the word "fun" and say it as an adjective then i'm all for it. Me and my friends even make up our own words sometimes use words from my favourite books which are also made up, it's not always an important issue to worry about whether you are being grammatically correct if you are still having FUN. Go forth and have the funnest most fun time ever and i'm sure it will be really fun if you don't listen to Jerry Jones all the time, but perhaps next time at least give the word fun a little notice if you are conveying it as a noun or adjective.

Au revoir,

Yazzy J