Here's the context. I'm playing Spelling Bee, a game where you have to make words from seven letters and one of the letters you have to use. Anyways I get a board with a M, E, C, A in it. Now normally you can't use proper nouns but mecca it took.
I understand that there's a secondary definition of mecca meaning the most important place to something, like Madison Square Garden is the mecca of basketball. But it still feels like a reference to the city so it should be a proper noun. For instance I can't use Rome despite it being used in two idioms that aren't necessarily referring to the actual city of Rome.
If the word is not challenged, it's legal. Period.
This seems Chaotic Good to me
I think there has to be a point where this kind of "genericised trademark" becomes a valid word - a "dreadnought" is an all-big-gun battleship like the H.M.S. Dreadnought, for example.
c/askscorded
Yeah, but theses guys are my friends. I want my friends' opinions
I would for the reason you mention. I'm sure I could find other religious words I'd argue that aren't inherently muzzie. I mean God versus god. Christians in particular would use those words with an emphasis on the proper name God for the named deity and a god for a random blasphemous god. So I'd allow god too.
If a word has a non proper definition then it is a valid word.
I've seen the word 'mecca' (lowercase) used in sci-fi works over the years. I always assumed it was kind of like 'God' vs 'a god', etc.
You could debate philosophically how many times a word needs to be used before it's no longer considered a 'proper' noun. Cellophane, nylon, dumpster, escalator, even heroin all used to be brand names. Xerox, Photoshop, Kleenex, Band-aid are used generically even though they're still brands (Walkman went obsolete before it could be genericized). It's one of those "how many grains of rice make a heap" questions.