2

When did the phrase "how fun" become acceptable? I first heard this term used about 10 years ago and I thought it very odd. Personally I don't think this phrase will ever be acceptable to me. I know I will never use it.

BigAldo
  • 29
  • 1
  • 2
  • 1
    What a fun question! Could you please tell us what bothers you about this? – tchrist Jan 03 '18 at 19:48
  • Well, my entire life (until 10 years ago) the phrase has always been "how much fun". I can't really say why it bothers me that the word "much" now appears to be optional, but it just seems wrong to me. One person said "I went to Disney World" and the other person said "Oh, how fun!" I'm sorry but to me this has to be "Oh that sounds like a lot of fun" or "How much fun that must have been". – BigAldo Jan 03 '18 at 20:04
  • FWIW, "how" is used instead of "that sounds like fun", or "that seems like fun" but I've most often heard "how fun" used sarcastically. – Kristina Lopez Jan 03 '18 at 20:10
  • This shows another aspect of the conversion (synonymous with 'zero derivation') of 'fun' to true adjective status. This thread is highly relevant. But 'acceptability' is not well-defined hereabouts, as Quirk and Svartvik point out. – Edwin Ashworth Jan 03 '18 at 20:11
  • @EdwinAshworth It's true that the adjectival use is new to these past two hundred years, so it’s possible that our asker is from an earlier time. – tchrist Jan 03 '18 at 20:13
  • @BigAldo People have been saying "What fun!" since 1776, but "How fun!" has ‘recently’ shot up significantly. See below. – tchrist Jan 03 '18 at 20:20
  • 1
    @tchrist 'True adjectival use' is difficult to define, of course, but extension of distribution to that of recognised central adjectives, gradability, availability of comparatives ..., use in phrases like 'How rude/quaint!' and 'as cold as ice' are all markers. 'Fun' is not yet a central adjective (though it certainly seems to be making progress). – Edwin Ashworth Jan 03 '18 at 20:46
  • I've just returned from our annual trip to the post-Christmas pantomime, with our five-year-old granddaughter. In this moment and context "How fun" sounds like a perfectly literate piece of dialogue. – WS2 Jan 03 '18 at 22:46
  • acceptable to whom, in what context? – Drew Jan 03 '18 at 23:18
  • On the way to school this morning with my 9-year-old - she was happily describing the 'funnest' thing they'd done yesterday. – Dan Jan 04 '18 at 00:12
  • @BigAldo - Do you have a problem with other uses of "How"? How quaint, how childish, how beautiful, how sinful, how delicious.... – Jim Jan 04 '18 at 01:11
  • @Dan This is my point. It is kids' talk. We are reducing the language to that of nine-year-olds. – WS2 Jan 04 '18 at 06:15
  • @WS2 - Yes, I suppose it is. And yet... every generation not only learns to use the language they grow up with, but also 'makes it their own'. I'm not sure I can whole-heartedly agree that the linguistic world of a nine-year-old is simply a 'reduced' version of my (more correct) 'adult' usage. My bottom line is that if something is clearly expressed - and there is nothing unclear about 'funner' and 'funnest' - then there is nothing 'wrong' (although I may not like it). – Dan Jan 04 '18 at 09:51

1 Answers1

0

Dashing through the snow...

Here's a Google Ngram of the phrase:

ngram of "how fun"

As you can see, it only seemed to appear in force around 1970 or so, and it has been gaining ground very fast, especially in the blue line representing the US corpus compared with the red line representing the UK corpus.

The word itself is pretty new to English, appearing as a verb in the late 1600s, as a noun in the early 1700s, and as an adjective in the early 1800s.

The OED notes that the expression “to be fun” showed up in the mid 1700s but the predicative use that arose in the late 1950s should probably be interpreted as an adjective (“a fun thing”) not as a noun (“We had fun”). They give this Christmas citation for that:

  • 1958 Listener 25 Dec. 1085/1
    The clothes were Jacobean, and fun to wear.

Oh, what fun it is to ride...!

However, the phrase you’re asking about seems like a variant on the exclamation of “What fun!”, which the OED says is:

used to indicate that an activity or situation sounds amusing or enjoyable. Sometimes used with ironic or sarcastic force.

The first citation for that use is from 1776. The most recent one is this:

  • 2013 Financial Times 23 May 19
    The Harlem rapper demanded to see crowd-surfing, moshing, topless women and weed-smoking. Cue lusty cheers from the audience. What fun!
tchrist
  • 134,759
  • Comparing 'What fun!' with 'How fun!' looks very much like comparing 'What joy!' with *'How joy!' The 'What ...' strings use the noun. – Edwin Ashworth Jan 04 '18 at 00:02
  • @EdwinAshworth Oh haha, you're right. You know, it's funny: I would never think twice about playing a fun* game, but for some reason inflecting that into another degree sounds bonkers to me: a funner game, the funnest game. I have a sneaking suspicion that my mind is thinking of fun* as an attributive noun there. – tchrist Jan 04 '18 at 00:05
  • I don't think it unlikely that the attributive usage started out that way. Despite the earlier adjectival usage. Hence my conversion claim. // The whole issue of peripheral adjectives is still a minefield (mere in 'a mere youth' relates to the context of the class, comparing it with the superset, and is almost akin to a determiner). – Edwin Ashworth Jan 04 '18 at 00:15