NRTC English: Funny enough or funnily enough?

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes

If you say funnily enough, you mean although something is surprising, it is true or really happened. For example, funnily enough, the young boy is threatening to kill me. It is another way of expressing “oddly enough”.

It is not related to funny. However, one can say he is rich/funny enough to mean he is sufficiently rich/funny.

If this person is not well armed, physically or spiritually, you may tell him to take the young man’s words seriously (not, take the young man’s words serious). When you take someone or something seriously, you regard someone or something as important and worthy of attention. For example, such threats have to be taken seriously”. Therefore, saying I don’t take him serious is wrong.

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It is important to note that adverbs of manner always end in “ly”, e.g carefully, beautifully, frankly, carelessly, honestly, loudly, neatly, etc. They form the largest group of adverbs we have in English and are mostly used to modify verbs.

In the same vein, it will be incorrect to say someone did the job just perfect” or that “a group that was heavy armed” did something. ‘Perfectly’ is an adverb, and ‘perfect’ is an adjective. Therefore, to properly use an adverb in the context above, we must use ‘perfectly’ as in someone did the job just perfectly. The same rule applies to ‘heavily armed’, as in a group that was ‘heavily armed’ did something.

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Other examples are:

1. They are assured the job was performed very safely.
2. The young professor talked to us calmly.

Adjectives can also end in -ly, Some examples are cowardly, dastardly, measly, miserly, slovenly, costly, deadly, friendly, likely, smelly, and timely.

One can, therefore, say he is a weak, cowardly man, or a dastardly attack, or even slovenly speech (careless speech). The rule is simple: adverbs modify adjectives, verbs, or other adverbs, while adjectives modify nouns, noun phrases, and pronouns.