Wednesday, August 10, 2005
Why Does J.D. Salinger use the Word Crumby?
Because he can. It was perfectly ok in the 1940s, when he wrote Catcher in the Rye, to use the word crumby to mean something miserable, filthy, wretched, shabby, cheap or worthless. Come to think of it, if you want, you can still use it. It is quite acceptable. It does seem more common however to use the spelling variant crummy. Your readers might be tempted to think of crumby as rhyming with Gumby.
I think I might find myself using crumbier in my writing rather than crummier, but crummiest rather than crumbiest. They just feel more natural. Whatever turns your crank, as they say, because all four are acceptable. So are crumminess and crumbiness if you want to be a an advocate for variety. As always, the watchword is consistency in your writing. We can at least be thankful that for all the dozens of times Salinger used it in his novel, (his main character also found most of the people in his life phony and used the word to excess), it was always spelled the same way.
If you do use crumby in your written communications rest assured that you can hold your head up high and cite its use in that classic work of the twentieth century.
I think I might find myself using crumbier in my writing rather than crummier, but crummiest rather than crumbiest. They just feel more natural. Whatever turns your crank, as they say, because all four are acceptable. So are crumminess and crumbiness if you want to be a an advocate for variety. As always, the watchword is consistency in your writing. We can at least be thankful that for all the dozens of times Salinger used it in his novel, (his main character also found most of the people in his life phony and used the word to excess), it was always spelled the same way.
If you do use crumby in your written communications rest assured that you can hold your head up high and cite its use in that classic work of the twentieth century.
# posted by Ninja @ 6:51 PM 
