Fun, Oh Boy' Fun' You Could Die from It

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Fun, Oh Boy. Fun. You Could Die from It

• By Suzanne Britt Jordan

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Pre-reading

• What expectations do you bring to an article
  entitled Fun, Oh Boy. Fun. You Could Die from
  it? Can fun actually harm or kill you? In what
  ways? Do you think that Americans are too much of
  a fun culture? Why or why not?
• Do you think we Taiwanese have a fun culture?
  Why or why not?

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Pre-reading

• Consider the contrasts between, and shades of
  difference within, puritan (par. 3).
  selfless (par. 4), and Licentiousness (par.
  9). Or between epitome (par. 11), reverently
  (par. 13), and blaspheme (par. 13). What do
  these words imply about the essay, the author?
  What do you guess the essay is likely to say?

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In reading

• golly gee (par. 8) definition
• Polaroid snapshot (par. 10) definition
• Jove (par. 5) definition
• swill (par. 10) definition
• rough-and-ready (par. 10) definition
• to put a damper on sth. (par. 12)
• What other rhetorical strategies are used in this
  essay? (hint pars. 8 14 pars. 6 10)

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Vocabulary Building

• 1. A. something precious
• B. by all-powers
• C. she fell terrible
• D. Gosh
• 2. A. render unimportant or insighificant
• B. failing
• C. walking aimlessly or idly
• D. drinking greedily or excessively
• Gaiety, merriment

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Understanding the Writers ideas

• 1. In pars. 1-5, she implies that fun is not
  easily come by it is not something common it is
  not something that necessarily comes daily and
  it is not simply pure pleasure.
• 2. We would make it into fun, despite the fact
  that it may not have been so. For example, she
  cites things that got the reputation of being fun
  (6) family outings, sex, education, work, Walt
  Disney, church, staying fit.

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Understanding the Writers ideas

• 3. By placing happy faces on them.
• 4. By stepping up the level of danger or
  licentiousness or alcohol or drug consumption.
• 5. Taking Polaroid picture, swilling beer, buying
  insurance, mopping the floor, bowing, taking
  aspirin (10)

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Understanding the Writers ideas

• 6. We usually anticipate the fun so much on big
  occasions that we end up missing it when it
  finally comes. It may even come on a Tuesday
  means that fun may come when we least expect it,
  when there is no big occasion.

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Understanding the Writers ideas

• 7. About fun, Jordan says not much is (12). She
  feels we ought to be more reverent about fun, to
  feel it more as a mystery than as something to
  which we are automatically entitled. It may even
  come when we are working or performing some duty,
  implying that those things can be the real fun
  in life (13)

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Understanding the Writers ideas

• 8. They were about twelve years old. They had
  just bought candyBit-O-Honey, malted milk balls,
  chocolate stars, Chunkies, M Msand were
  walking home together. Pams gestures were
  especially funny because they were truly enjoying
  each others friendshipthat is, having fun.

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Understanding the Writers ideas

• 9. She is regretful about growing up and
  feeling, therefore, that she has lost the kind
  of day and friendship and occasion that she had
  with Pam. It is difficult to say how sad or
  regretful she really is she seems more
  bittersweet than sad, although some readers might
  logically question why growing up precludes
  having fun

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Understanding the Writers Techniques

• 1. Fun comes unexpectedly, it is not there for
  the asking. Par. 13 provides the key elements of
  the thesis.
• 2. The first two paragraphs are, in a way,
  definitions of fun. However, these two
  sentences, either singly or together, do not
  sufficiently define the abstract concept which is
  the subject of the essay The first (fun is hard
  to have) simply states the quality of the
  concepts the second (Fun is a rare jewel.)
  makes a metaphorical comparison.

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Understanding the Writers ideas

• 3. In the three paragraphs, Jordan mentions all
  sorts of things that are supposed to be fun,
  but does so in a way to suggest that she
  certainly does not think of them as automatically
  being fun. For example, in par. 7 she explains
  how happy face stickers are supposed to make
  fun out of something like a flunked test. Par.
  8 relates a vignette in which a kid does not
  respond the right way to something which his or
  her parents are sure would be fun. And in par.
  9 she becomes more serious in her irony by
  indicating that drug or alcohol abuse is
  sometimes a negative way of making fun out of
  times when life is not so thrilling

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Understanding the Writers ideas

• 4. The fact that we have accepted some things as
  fun mainly because, through advertising or
  cultural assimilation, we have come to think of
  them as having to be fun although we may not
  actually derive any pleasure from them.
• 5. Jordan attempts to include in her definition
  and analysis the broad spectrum of objects,
  products, and activities which we have come to
  assume are fun, but may, in fact, not be so.

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Understanding the Writers ideas

• 6. The tone is talky and slightly cynical
  although essentially it remains a lighthearted
  irony through the use of conversational words and
  phrases. Among these are snakes alive! (3) by
  Jove (5) flunking (7) this aint fun, ma (8)
  Golly gee (8) those rough-and-ready guys (10)

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Understanding the Writers ideas

• 7. As in her use of everyday and everything,
  Jordan is attempting to show us just how many
  things from so many different types of activities
  we take for granted as having to be fun. In a
  way, she is trying to point out to us that we are
  often much too unselective in our evaluations of
  fun. Pars. 6 and 10 are especially effective
  for their use of multiple examples.

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Understanding the Writers ideas

• 8. Par. 12 serves as a transitional paragraph,
  whereas par. 13 is the first one to be mostly
  affirmative (It is a mystery.) The switch turns
  the tone of the essay from ironic or cynical to
  more serious and reminiscent of fun times in the
  past
• 9. Disney World (8) Polaroids (10) Bit-O-Honey,
  Chunky, M Ms (14). By using specific brand
  names, she brings specificity and familiarity to
  her illustrations.

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Understanding the Writers ideas

• 10. Narration is used to illustrate aspects of
  the concept of fun. Par. 8 is the imagined
  story of a kid with his or her parents in Disney
  World. Par. 14 narrates a fun time Jordan had
  with her childhood friend, Pam. The narration of
  her childhood memory adds a nice, personal touch
  to the essay.

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Understanding the Writers ideas

• 11. Perhaps she wants her readers to begin and
  end this essay with the idea that fun is really
  quite simplenot so complicated and busy as all
  the things she describes in the body of the
  essay.