I was at work last night, proofreading the Opinion columns - which up until now I thought I was qualified to do - when columnist Richard Creed broke some startling news to me. Apparently, “fun” is not an adjective, and people who use it that way are uneducated troglodytes.

Most of us over 50 grew up never hearing or seeing fun used as an adjective … My wish is that it would disappear for good and never again rear its ugly little head. The juvenile sound of it is enough to keep me from reading any book in which a character talks that way. - Richard Creed, 06-09-07

That was the first of a two-part series about the use of “fun” as an adjective. This week, readers wrote back to him to comment on it. Here’s Mary Ann Peden-Coviello:

“… as a writer of fiction, I find it sometimes useful, in dialogue, to use fun [as an adjective]. I find it to be a good way to indicate the type of character about which I am writing, as is the use of ain’t or double negatives or non-agreement of subject and verb (‘they wasn’t going,’ for example).”

So saying “I went to a fun party” is like saying “I ain’t never been there?”

Okay, I know the “who/whom” and the “that/which” rules. I use “nauseated” instead of “nauseous.” I know the difference between “affect” and “effect.” I try to avoid using the word “literally.”

It’s just that dangling participles have never kept me up at night, you know? If I’m writing an email, I’ll throw caution to the wind and start a sentence with “and” and end it with “of” or “to.” That’s right, I live on the grammatical edge!

But I never knew that I was misusing “fun,” or that there were people who would judge me for it. Geez.