"Mundanity?"

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I just started reading a ghetto erotica novel. The writing is excellent and none of its standard English. Its definitely not The Brady Bunch Erotica we serve here at McLIT.

 

[tolyk]

I think you have the wrong witch, sweetie.

Perhaps, but I had the right "Bane" It's a movie quote.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Words like that are called nonce words

Since wikipedia has a page about it, it must be okay...

 

[SecondCircle]

For me, the most important thing when I come across words like this (or others I'm not sure about) is good ole grade school context clues.

Usually, given context, I can figure out what's going on or what something means if the writer builds it the right way. I knew what slyc was talking about right away and what was going on with just the simple sentence (regardless if it was a real word that I already knew).

Even so its never too much a jarring experience to me that it throws me out of a story. Not single words anyway. I just kinda move on, especially if the author has done a good enough job of drawing me in.

But my thing is whole passages that just don't flow well. One word I can slip around, but when a sentence or passage doesn't flow or is organized in a way that makes me reread the whole thing to figure out what exactly is being said or what's going on, that's when it's an issue for me.

...you can tell that I have this problem when writing. I gotta reword crap all the time. I get in the zone and just fly, and when I reread it I'm like "ugh, that would be a nightmare for someone to read."

I've always wondered about "ish" words. Like "bluish" or "five-thirtyish". Some of these are words, like I think bluish is a word, but it can get crazy throwing that ish around. And it always sounds like it only belongs in realistic character talk and dialogue.

Mundanityish. I just invented that one.

 

[slyc_willie]

The issue isn't whether or not "mundanity" is a word or if it can be used as a made-up word. It is a word. So using it as a made-up word is irrelevant. There even are multiple dictionary listings of it online (keyword "mundanity"), including Mirriam-Webster (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mundane).

HP brought up the more important point all the way at the beginning of the thread: should it be used rather than the more common "the mundane"?

Depends. Do you want a lot of the readers stopping and contemplating that word or does the word itself not have enough meaning to the plotline for the reader to stop and consider whether it is a word and what it means rather than read right through it because it isn't all the important to the story?

In the realm of fantasy writing, readers accept and even expect to see terms and words they haven't seen before. Part and parcel for the genre. If I used mundanity in a contemporary-themed story, a few readers might understand that it is actually a word (if an obscure one), while others might be put off by it and still more might think I'm ESL.

But I probably wouldn't use mundanity in that context. To me, it seems the sort of word you might expect to find in a fantasy or sci-fi novel.

(sorry for not getting back to this sooner. Internet issues.)

 

[PayDay]

*sigh*

I think you are missing the point.

Word. Groucho'd.