Funner and Funnest

[Jesse Sheidlower]

On Sun, May 28, 2006 at 11:21:25AM -0700, Arnold M. Zwicky wrote:
>
> once you start to get predicative "fun" modified by degree adverbs
> like "very" and "so", then you're looking at adjective uses.  these
> were probably around for some time without attracting notice -- no
> doubt someone has looked at the history (it might even be in whitney
> tabor's 1994 stanford ph.d. dissertation, which i don't have to hand
> at the moment) -- until the extremely visible comparative and
> superlative appeared (at least 25 years ago), and people started
> complaining, often and loudly.

I don't have it in front of me right now, but I'm rather sure that
John Algeo's essay on _fun_ in American Speech--1962 I think--
discussed the comparative and superlative forms.

<unhelpful, I know, but someone else can look it up...>

Jesse Sheidlower
OED

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