1

Is there a rule as to when I use "more" in a sentence or "-er"? For example, "I think it would be more fun/funner if we stayed home tonight." I know the correct usage in this sentence but is there a general rule to follow?

tchrist
  • 134,759
Elizabeth
  • 19
  • I think that the difference between more fun and funner is a topic unto itself, since fun is traditionally a noun. – Anonym Aug 15 '14 at 10:07
  • The morphological rules for forming the comparative degree are not specific to adjectives: gradable adverbs like fast, soon, deep are also subject to the same rule. Note also that these are not actually rules; they are more like preferences. Most notably there are disyllabic modifiers that form comparative and superlative degrees by adding -er and -st instead of, or as an alternative to, using more and most on them. – tchrist Aug 15 '14 at 12:47

1 Answers1

1

From the Wikipedia article on 'Comparative':

... monosyllabic adjectives generally form their comparative form with -er in English, whereas polysyllabic adjectives prefer to use more.

That is to say, adjectives with one syllable will usually use "-er", and anything else will use "more". So you would expect the comparative form of "fun" to be "funner", except...

The case of "fun" is slightly different because in 'proper' English usage, "fun" is actually a noun rather than an adjective. "More fun" is therefore used to mean "a greater amount of fun", while "funner" is not strictly grammatical. In practice, however, it's quite common for "fun" to be used informally as an adjective, but "funner" still sounds odd to most people.

j11c
  • 19