Here’s one for all of the descriptivists out there. Since many of them who write to us insist that as long as people use an arrangement of letters, that means it’s a legitimate word, I thought it might actually be fun to jump on the descriptivist bandwagon and propose a new “word” of my own: Funfaithful.

I thought that this word could be used to mean either a man or a woman who’s in a committed relationship—usually a marriage—but is having an extra-relationship affair. Instead of just being plain old UNfaithful, which has no pizazz and sounds as if it could be rather boring, why not call it FUNfaithful since having an affair is FUN—-at least for the person having it.

It’s in the same vein as staycation; while it’s really just still a vacation, now we have to qualify the location of the vacation by explaining that we’re staying home. Funfaithful also gives us a little more in the way of explanation of our actions. It’s not JUST being unfaithful—-oh, no—–it’s FUN!

Sherry