An open letter to NPR's On the Media

During Brooke Gladstone's piece about changes in the video game industry this weekend, I was shocked and dismayed to hear her use the word "funnest."

As a high school English teacher, I do my best to instill in my students a sense of respect and appreciation for language. Every day, I listen to them complain that the rules I teach them don't "sound right," because they're so used to hearing language used incorrectly. I thought NPR was the last vestige of proper grammar--one of the few places where my students wouldn't receive mixed grammar messages. If that's no longer true, I mourn not only for our language, but also for the poor students trying to learn that "funnest" isn't really a word.