A week or so ago I learned something earth shattering. To be honest with you, I’m not even sure I should write about it – because, well it could alter the very foundation of humankind. By revealing this horrifying truth, many of us (and by that I mean me) will question everything we have ever learned. And what is this potentially catastrophic truth that will shake you to your core?
Technically, “funner” is an actual word.
I know. Your mind is totally blown, right? I mean, how many of us have spent our entire existence telling the younger generation that “funner” is not a word? That things can be more fun, but they can never be funner? It’s the foundation for everything we stand for as humans. Funner cannot possibly be a word.
And yet, apparently, it is.
I know this because I was at a certain store in Gilroy whose name starts with a W and it has many smiley faces on the price tags. As I walked out of the store, I noticed one of those game thingies that basically beg small children to spend their entire hard-earned allowance shoving quarters into a machine that will spit out a cheap toy worth two cents. On the side it said, “Makes family fun funner!” Or something like that.
Well, you can imagine what that did to me. I was raised in a family where language was drilled into us; where use of a large word over a small word was not just encouraged, it was required. So I looked at the word “funner” and thought, “That’s not a word.”
And then I did what any reasonable person living in the 21st century would do. I went to Facebook and made fun of the W store for having a machine in the lobby that advocated the use of “funner.”
And that is when the word funner slapped me across the face. According to one of my friends – whose husband has a graduate degree in English – funner is technically a word. I will pause now and let that sink in. Yes, funner is a word. Shocking, isn’t it?
Look, the worst part of all of this is the fact that if I was wrong about funner, what the heck else have I been wrong about? I’ve spent the past 17 years teaching my teenager that funner isn’t a word. If it is technically a word, do you know what that means?
Please. That could mean that all these years I didn’t need to know the difference between they’re, their and there. Maybe they all mean the same dang thing. Or perhaps it was perfectly fine to use “ain’t.” Maybe there isn’t any difference between can not and cannot. Or its and it’s. Maybe double negatives are perfectly fine to use.
No. I refuse to accept that. If double negatives are perfectly fine to use, the earth will slip off its axis and all of us will be floating in space or living on the moon in a giant bubble built by NASA. Double negatives cannot be fine. They just can’t be.
But what if there are deeper ramifications to the word funner? What if I’ve been wrong about everything? What if it’s perfectly OK to wear underwear with a hole in them? What if that doesn’t mean your mother will be terminally humiliated if you get into a car wreck with holey panties? What if the doctors and nurses working frantically to save your life don’t even care that your underwear has a tiny tear in them?
What if you really can eat dessert first? What if eating a snack right before dinner won’t spoil your entire appetite? What if you can teach an old dog new tricks? What if things can not only get better, they can get more better? What if it’s perfectly fine to ask what table to put the vase on, instead of on which table should the vase be placed?
This alters the very fabric of the universe. I’m telling you, it has made me question everything I have ever been taught. But one thing I do know: Discovering how this changes everything is going to be much more funner than it should be.
