Welcome to Writers Talkback. If you are a new user, your account will have to be approved manually to prevent spam. Please bear with us in the meantime

Am I wrong in thinking it's wrong?

edited December 2013 in Writing
I know language evolves and teenagers like to put their own spin on it, but one thing that has particularly bugged me is when my daughters and their friends say: 'It's so fun.'

Now that very phrase is being bandied about on a TV advert. The very shock of it!

There must be logic to why it's wrong. Or am I wrong in thinking it's wrong?

Fun is an abstract noun and an adjective. (We had fun. It was a fun time.)
Great is an adjective.

We can say 'It was fun' or 'It was great'.

We can say 'so great' so why is it correct to say 'such fun' rather than 'so fun'?

Sorry if that's all a bit convoluted...

Comments

  • I shudder too, but that's teenagers for you...
  • What your daughter is saying is not right, but it's like saying, 'it was well good' - that used to drive me mad when I worked at school! It will find current acceptance as trendy-speak.
    Looking at the OED, they say it's also used as an adjective in 'we had a fun evening' which is only acceptable in informal use. Americans use it also as fun, funner, funnest - it's being evolved whether it wants it or not. Grates on the ear, doesn't it?
  • That is the kind of thing that is said in the Miranda programme. Totes amazeballs and all that!
  • edited December 2013
    The thing is, teenagers will always say whatever things happen to be trendy at the time, and I'm pretty sure none of them ever think about the grammatical correctness of a word or combination of words. I remember a teacher pulling me and my mates up for repeatedly saying "Far out, man!" back in the late 1960s, but we kept saying it all the same.
    I think the only phrase that grates with me is when someone says "Right, let's crack on," instead of saying "Let's get on with it."
  • [quote=Mrs Bear]Looking at the OED, they say it's also used as an adjective in 'we had a fun evening' [/quote]

    Yes, I can see that, Mrs Bear.

    I just wondered if there was a specific grammar rule that backs me up and explains why it should be 'such' fun rather than 'so' fun.
  • [quote=Tiny Nell]We can say 'so great' so why is it correct to say 'such fun' rather than 'so fun'?[/quote] I'm not sure that 'so fun' is any less correct than 'so great' or 'such fun'. Maybe some phrases sound more right because we're more used to them?
  • Fun is a verb. Great isn't.
  • I think it's because fun is more noun-like than great, even though both are used as adjectives.

    A fun evening is an evening of fun whereas a great evening is not an evening of greatness.
    'So' seems to go with adjectives ( so loud , so pretty, so great) and such seems to go with nouns (such fun, such a lovely time, such beauty).

    Not a very technical explanation, but that's how it 'feels' to me!
  • i think of fun as a doing word!
  • I fun, you fun, we all fun!
  • [quote=heather]'So' seems to go with adjectives ( so loud , so pretty, so great) and such seems to go with nouns (such fun, such a lovely time, such beauty).
    [/quote]

    Yes, heather. I agree. Even though fun can also be an adjective, it's being used as a noun when they say 'so fun' which means it should be 'such fun'. That's it in a nutshell.

    Thank you.
  • That's funny!
  • [quote=Tiny Nell]I fun, you fun, we all fun![/quote] Well, when you put it like that... lol!
  • Or even fun off.
  • [quote=Tiny Nell]when my daughters and their friends say: 'It's so fun.'[/quote] Consider;
    those children are meaning to explain that:-
    “It is so much fun … {to do, to achieve, to experience etc.}
  • I think it's used along the lines of the phrase, 'That's so yesterday!' Very American, and actually makes no sense if you analyze it, but is used as an expression of degree.
  • There are a lot of phrases around that aren't grammatically correct and pardon me for saying so, but the one that continues to tickle my fancy is, "We were sat..." or "I was stood..." They always make me chuckle. Verrrry UK and not just out of younger mouths, either.
    Let us just add, "It's so fun" to the list and say no more. Teehee.
  • edited December 2013
    .
  • I THINK you may have misplaced your thread, Seaview...
  • LOL - yes, I have Liz!!!!
  • [quote=Island Girl]There are a lot of phrases around that aren't grammatically correct and pardon me for saying so, but the one that continues to tickle my fancy is, "We were sat..." or "I was stood..." They always make me chuckle.[/quote]

    Yet I can envisage an English lesson in the distant future where a teacher is talking about deponent verbs (verbs which are passive in form but active in meaning). "Latin had dozens of deponent verbs, but English has only two: sit and stand". I'm sure an awful lot of English that is now acceptable used to be frowned on. I think my generation would have been reprimanded if we had written co-operate without a hyphen, but that seems to be the norm nowadays.
  • If there's no hyphen there ought to be an umlaut or some such thing to mark the change in vowel sound. The OED gives 'cooperative, also co-operative', and similarly for cooperate; but co-opt , co-own, co-parent, and more. Tricky, isn't it?
  • [quote=Onlinegenie]
    Yet I can envisage an English lesson in the distant future where a teacher is talking about deponent verbs [/quote]

    I read that as 'despondent' verbs...;)
  • Just for the fun of it... Why also do West Indians say "It's bad,man", when they mean the exact opposite ("It's GOOD, man")???? Baffles me - but that's "Yoof" for putting their stamp on evolution of the lingo...
  • I once posted some photographs on Facebook for the local amateur dramatic society. One of the young members clicked on "like" and commented that my photographs were sick! I replied "I thought you liked them!". He told me that "sick" is youth speak for "good".
  • edited December 2013
    If I recall correctly, using words with meanings opposite to their original meanings comes from the American slave trade era. Slaves did this to communicate without alerting their masters to their true intentions; it was also a means of defiance, reclaiming their captors' language as their own. They also sang songs called spirituals with encoded messages to guide each other to freedom during escape - so the English slave masters heard them singing but didn't realise they were hatching escape plans.

    This new English survived the generations, becoming part of the African American vernacular, and later spreading to youth culture among blacks and whites through popular media.
  • Interesting - I didn't know that.
  • [quote=Onlinegenie] "I thought you liked them!". He told me that "sick" is youth speak for "good".[/quote]
    As is 'wicked'.
  • That one I would have known, IG - that's been around since I was in my teens.
  • But you is only just out of your teenses, now, OLG.
  • Having a 25 year-old daughter and a 20 year-old son suggests otherwise IG! But thanks anyway.
  • [quote=Onlinegenie]Having a 25 year-old daughter and a 20 year-old son suggests otherwise IG! But thanks anyway.[/quote]

    You should have said they were toddlers. We'd be none the wiser!!
  • In e-space, no-one can count your wrinkles!
Sign In or Register to comment.