Fun

The word fun is associated with sports, entertaining media, high merriment,{{cite book|last=Bailey|first=Nathan|title=An universal etymological English dictionary: comprehending the derivations ...|url=https://archive.org/details/universaletymol00bail|year=1775|publisher=R. Ware, W. Innys|pages=FU|isbn=978-1-234-36393-2}} and amusement. Although its etymology is uncertain, it has been speculated that it may be derived from Middle English {{Lang|enm|fonne}} (fool) and {{Lang|enm|fonnen}} (the one fooling the other).{{cite book |last=Andreyev |first=Judith |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yKRqAHhVa0gC&pg=PA26 |title=Wondering about Words: D'où Viennent Les Mots Anglais ? |publisher=Bréal; BREAL |year=2005 |isbn=978-2749503059 |pages=26}} An 18th century meaning (still used in Orkney and Shetland) was "cheat, trick, hoax", a meaning still retained in the phrase "to make fun of".{{cite book|last=Cousineau|first=Phil|title=The Painted Word: A Treasure Chest of Remarkable Words and Their Origins|year=2012|publisher=Cleis Press|isbn=978-1-936740-25-3|pages=156}}

{{Blockquote| The landlady was going to reply, but was prevented by the peace-making sergeant, sorely to the displeasure of Partridge, who was a great lover of what is called fun, and a great promoter of those harmless quarrels which tend rather to the production of comical than tragical incidents.
Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling (1749){{cite book|last=Fielding|first=Henry|title=The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling|year= 1749|publisher=Penguin Books (1966)|pages=458 (Book 9, Ch.6)}} }}

The way the word fun is used demonstrates its distinctive elusiveness and happiness. Expressions such as "Have fun!" and "That was fun!" indicate that fun is pleasant, personal, and to some extent unpredictable. Expressions such as "I was making fun of myself" convey the sense that fun is something that can be amusing and not to be taken seriously. The adjective "funny" has two meanings, which often need to be clarified between a speaker and listener. One meaning is "amusing, jocular, droll" and the other meaning is "odd, quirky, peculiar". These differences indicate the evanescent and experiential nature of fun and the difficulty of distinguishing "fun" from "enjoyment".{{cite web |author=Alan Dix |title=Fun Systematically |url=http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/~dixa/papers/ECCE-fun-2004/ecce-alan-fun-panel.pdf |url-status= |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110613021607/http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/~dixa/papers/ECCE-fun-2004/ecce-alan-fun-panel.pdf |archive-date=2011-06-13 |access-date=November 1, 2010}}

Fun's evanescence can be seen when an activity regarded as fun becomes goal-oriented. Many physical activities and individual sports are regarded as fun until the participant seeks to win a competition, at which point, much of the fun may disappear as the individual's focus tightens. Surfing is an example. If you are a "mellow soul" (not in a competition or engaging in extreme sport) "once you're riding waves, you're guaranteed to be having fun".{{cite book|last=Alderson|first=Alf|title=Surfing: A Beginner's Guide|year=2008|publisher=John Wiley & Sons|location=Chichester, England|at=Preface|isbn=978-0-470-51654-6}}

The pleasure of fun can be seen by the numerous efforts to harness its positive associations. For example, there are many books on serious subjects, about skills such as music, mathematics and languages, normally quite difficult to master, which have "fun" added to the title.{{cite book|last=Matz|first=Carol|title=Famous & Fun Classic Themes – 13 Appealing Arrangements for Early Elementary to Elementary Pianists|year=2003|publisher=Alfred Music Publishing}}{{cite book|last=de Guzmán|first=Miguel|title=The Countingbury Tales: Fun With Mathematics|year=2000|publisher=World Scientific Publishing Company|location=River Edge, NJ, Covent Garden, London|isbn=978-981-02-4032-5}}{{cite book|last=Akiyama|first=Nobuo|title=Learn Japanese (Nihongo): The Fast and Fun Way|year=1999|publisher=Barron's Educational Series|isbn=978-0-7641-0623-1|author2=Carol Akiyama}}

Many physical activities provide opportunities to play and have fun. Not only can these activities be fun, but they can also improve physical and mental states.

{{Gallery

|title= Opportunities for fun

|width=180

|height=150

|align=center

|File:Wasserspiele2.jpg|Children in a playground fountain (Frankfurt 2006)

|File:MBI BuckBuck crop.jpg|Young adults playing (Chicago 2006)

|File:Warsaw Pillow Fight 2010 (4488607206).jpg|Pillow fight (Warsaw 2010)

|File:Three people having fun at a dive bar.jpg|Three people at a dive bar (Boston 2023)

}}

File:"Fun, off the job keeps him on the Job" - NARA - 514789.jpg era employment poster about the importance of fun]]

According to Johan Huizinga, fun is "an absolutely primary category of life, familiar to everybody at a glance right down to the animal level."{{Cite book |last=Huizinga |first=Johan |authorlink=Johan Huizinga|url=https://archive.org/details/homoludensstudyo1950huiz/page/2/mode/2up |title=Homo Ludens: a study of the play element in culture |year=1950 |publisher=Roy Publishers|location=New York|via=the Internet Archive|page=3|oclc=1013214672|isbn=9780415175944}} Psychological studies reveal both the importance of fun and its effect on time perception, which is sometimes said to be shortened when one is having fun.{{Cite journal

| last1 = Sackett | first1 = A.

| last2 = Meyvis | first2 = T.

| last3 = Nelson | first3 = L.

| last4 = Converse | first4 = B.

| last5 = Sackett | first5 = A.

| title = You're having fun when time flies: the hedonic consequences of subjective time progression

| journal = Psychological Science

| volume = 21

| issue = 1

| pages = 111–117

| year = 2010

| pmid = 20424031

| doi = 10.1177/0956797609354832

| citeseerx = 10.1.1.719.8861

| s2cid = 14988552

}}{{cite news|title=Why Time Flies When You're Having Fun|url=http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/249410.php|first=Sarah|last=Glynn|work=Medical News Today|date=August 2012|access-date=2013-02-06|quote=Just being content or satisfied may not make time fly, but being excited or actively pursuing a desired object can.}} As the adage states: "Time flies when you're having fun".

It has been suggested that games, toys, and activities perceived as fun are often challenging in some way. When a person is challenged to think consciously, overcome challenge and learn something new, they are more likely to enjoy a new experience and view it as fun. A change from routine activities appears to be at the core of this perception, since people spend much of a typical day engaged in activities that are routine and require limited conscious thinking. Routine information is processed by the brain as a "chunked pattern": "We rarely look at the real world", according to game designer Raph Koster, "we instead recognize something we have chunked, and leave it at that. [...] One might argue that the essence of much of art is in forcing us to see things as they really are rather than as we assume them to be".{{cite book |last=Koster |first=Raph |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gIGxSe2MsecC&pg=PA22 |title=Theory of Fun for Game Design |publisher=O'Reilly Media, Inc. |year=2010 |isbn=978-1-4493-1497-2 |pages=22 |author-link=Raph Koster}} Since it helps people to relax, fun is sometimes regarded as a "social lubricant", important in adding "to one's pleasure in life" and helping to "act as a buffer against stress".{{cite book |last=Urdang |first=Esther |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_xR7o8hvatkC&pg=PA445 |title=Human Behavior in the Social Environment: Interweaving the Inner and Outer Worlds |publisher=Taylor & Francis |year=2008 |isbn=978-0-7890-3417-5 |edition=2nd |pages=445}}

For children, fun is strongly related to play and they have great capacity to extract the fun from it in a spontaneous and inventive way. Play "involves the capacity to have fun – to be able to return, at least for a little while, to never-never land and enjoy it."

Some scientists have identified areas of the brain associated with the perception of novelty, which are stimulated when faced with "unusual or surprising circumstances". Information is initially received in the hippocampus, the site of long-term memory consolidation, where the brain attempts to match the new information with recognizable patterns stored in long-term memory. When it is unable to do this, the brain releases dopamine, a chemical which stimulates the amygdala, the site of emotion, and creates a pleasurable feeling that is associated with the new memory.{{cite book|last=Sprenger|first=Marilee B.|title=The Leadership Brain For Dummies|year=2009|publisher=John Wiley & Sons|isbn=978-0-470-60005-4|pages=50}} In other words, fun is created by stimulating the brain with novelty.

{{Main|Entertainment}}

With the emergence of entertainment industry, fun is sold as a consumer product in the form of games, novelties, television, toys and other amusements. Marxist sociologists such as the Frankfurt School criticise mass-manufactured fun as too calculated and empty to be fully satisfying.{{Citation needed|date=September 2022}} Bill Griffith satirises this dysphoria when his cartoon character Zippy the Pinhead asks mechanically, "Are we having fun yet?" In The Beatles song "She's Leaving Home" fun is called "the one thing that money can't buy."{{citation |author=Mark Blythe, Marc Hassnzahl |title=Funology |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QKYPdcI-av8C&pg=PA91 |pages=91–100 |year=2004 |chapter=The Semantics of Fun |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-1-4020-2966-0}}

• Epicurus
• Hedonic treadmill
• Hedonism

{{reflist|30em}}

{{sister project links |wikt=fun |commons=Fun |b=no |n=no |q=Fun |s=no |v=no}}

• {{cite book |title=Having Fun |last=Yates |first=Vicki |year=2008 |publisher=Heinemann-Raintree Library |isbn=978-1-4034-9832-8 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6vgebPeDPPUC&q=having+fun |access-date=4 February 2013}}
• {{cite book |title=Theory of Fun for Game Design |first=Raph |last=Koster |publisher=O'Reilly Media, Inc. |year=2011 |isbn=978-1-932111-97-2}}

{{aesthetics}}

Category:Happiness

Category:Recreation