[Dorian]

Hi, new to this forum here. English is not my first language and I’m trying to figure out if a short sentence of mine is ‘poetic’ or simply ‘wrong grammar’. Hope a native speaker can help me with this. The phrase (also the song title) is:

“Nightly ponders”

As in “worrying too much about everything during the night”

In the sentence, ponders is used as a noun (verb = to ponder), but according to dictionaries online the word doesn’t exist as a noun. Perhaps “Nightly ponderings” should be better, but it doesn’t go with the rhythm of the song.

What do you think? Is it just wrong grammar, poetical or colloquial language (which is also fine)?

Alternatives that fit the rhythm are:
"At night I ponder" (sounds a bit too dramatic)
"Nightly wonders" (not dramatic enough :-D

[Sterix]

Hi Dorian

Welcome to the forum. As a lyricist I play around with grammatical issues all the time in my songs and as long as it makes sense (to me) I'm usually okay with them. Trying to fit exact grammar into a song is a nightmare so I often go down the "poetic" route.

It's difficult to comment on this without a little more context (as in the rest of the chorus or at least a couple of the surrounding lines. "Nightly XXXXXX" in of itself could be a noun or a verb (as in "Nightly dreaming").

On the other hand, if you use it as a noun just remember two things: (1) Shakespeare created a few thousand new words in his plays so you're in good company, and (2) language is fluid and changes all the time.

[Dorian]

Hi Sterix, thanks so much for your wonderful reply. As a non-native English speaker it’s sometimes hard to distinguish bad grammar from wonderful free poetry, especially since my mind has always been slightly more drawn to instrumental melodies than to words. I’ve home-recorded many songs in the past, but I always kept it to myself, for I mostly sung gibberish words just to portray the melody. Just a bit too insecure about the whole lyrics part I guess.

Below all of the lyrics. I gave it some thoughts today and changed a few lines (the old lines are between brackets). Hope to receive some thoughts on this:


The night ponders (“nightly ponders”)
All I fear
Creeping up on the walls
Such a spooky year

Nightly wonders
Those puzzles in the way
It all seems grim at night
until the breaking day

Finding distractions
Artistic travail
Thinking of a song
but the void is my coffin nail

Nightly thunders (“nightly ponders”)
They’ll fade away
During the duties of a
fresh and sunny day

All will be well, I guess
Time will set us free
This troubled heart of mine
still sings in minor key

[Sterix]

Given the poetic lean towards the lyrics in general, I think "nightly ponders" is just fine.