Author: lfsaldenbirch

Uncanny

lfsaldenbirch , , , ,

Uncanny – in meaning 4 “not to be trusted as being associated with supernatural arts or powers” – made perfect sense as the opposite of canny – “wise and safe and to be trusted.”  Gandalf is both uncanny and canny in these senses, as he is wise and eminently trustable and good.  This word is a Scottish regionalism and here I am eating another slice of humble pie, as the word is used not for low effect but by painting the picture with mystery and magic, to heighten the passages.

  • 04.002 for the echoes were uncanny,
  • 06.065 and uncanny fire.
  • 08.006 in the enormous uncanny darkness.

“unˈcanny, adj.” OED Online. Oxford University Press, March 2015. Web. 20 May 2015.

Delve

lfsaldenbirch , , , , , ,

I am learning humility.

The word “delve” is labelled by the OED as northern and Scottish – and right up against Wales, one source says it is specifically to dig two spades deep.  Clearly that’s a regional, parochial word, one which I should by my own arbitrary rule tag as “low”.  It’s also in the middle of a rather high-register poem in a position rhyming with “elves”, which by any first approximation should make it be tagged “high”.  I have tagged it both.

  • 01.078 And harps of gold; where no man delves

“delve, v.” OED Online. Oxford University Press, March 2015. Web. 20 May 2015.

Special words: high and low

lfsaldenbirch

In yesterday’s  7172 post, I made a plan to next address the words which have some special tag in the OED, such as obsolete, archaic, rare, dialectical, or jocular words.  Overnight, my plan jelled.  My goal from the beginning was to distinguish between words which are high-register and low, ignoring the middle ground for now.

I’m going to use the tag “high” on the very few obsolete words, the archaic words, the rare words, and other words which contribute to high register, as labeled by OED.

The tag “low” is going on parochial words, dialectical words, regional words, cuss words, jocular words.

By making tagged entries for each of these, we’ll be ready to move forward with our lexomics analysis while still making entries for other words.

Update 2015.06.20: tagging things “high” or “low” is an even less exact science than picking cherries… I have thrown in the towel on this one for now.

7172

lfsaldenbirch

After removing The Ten Thousand most common words in written British English from the approximately 96,000 words of The Hobbit,  I took out those words such as “immeasurable” which are in the Ten Thousand when stripped to their base word (“measure”).  I had earlier reported the total remaining words as “Seven Thousand and Change“.  Since then I’ve spotted a few more words to eliminate for being common words with extra syllables.

At the moment, there are 7172, although that number may move a bit still.  We have entries for 1618 of them; 2,360 original Middle Earth words such as names are being held aside for later consideration.  So, for the remaining words, I plan to focus first on archaic and rare words, and poetical words and perhaps funny words because those seem to be the ones showing patterns of use.  I will certainly also take pleasure in finishing all the entries of a particular letter just for that satisfaction, and I have planned one or two more grammar explorations such as “be-” prefixes.

My technical support person (thank you, my son) will be able and willing to help me with the Lexomics portion of our analysis in June, therefore the focus on those words first.

Yell

lfsaldenbirch , ,

I am fascinated to observe the gap in the uses of “yell” in chapters 9 through 16.  Surely, there was a good deal of noise being made in those chapters.

  • 04.015 Of course he gave a very loud yell,
  • 04.015 as loud a yell as a hobbit can give,
  • 04.016 Bilbo’s yell had done that much good.
  • 04.036 The yells and yammering,
  • 04.038 down more dark passages with the yells of the goblin-hall
  • 04.048 and gave one yell before they were killed.
  • 04.048 The ones behind yelled still more,
  • 05.137 With yells of delight
  • 05.138 They yelled twice as loud as before,
  • 05.141 This way!’ some yelled.
  • 05.141 That way!’ others yelled.
  • 06.028 As soon as Gandalf had heard Bilbo’s yell
  • 06.071 Then suddenly goblins came running up yelling.
  • 06.082 the goblins yelled
  • 07.084 They yelled with delight
  • 08.073 and though after a while it seemed to him they changed to yells
  • 17.050 The yells were deafening.

Yelp

lfsaldenbirch ,

Yelp has some delightful obsolete meanings, but in its current intransitive use is used mostly of animals.  Tolkien used it for wolves, goblins, and poor Bombur when he was stuck in a spider web.

  • 06.012 and we saw the goblins running back yelping.
  • 06.058 yelping all round the tree
  • 06.064 and yelping,
  • 06.064 and fro yelping horribly.
  • 06.067 and yelping come up faint from far beneath him.
  • 08.089 There was a muffled yelp inside,

“yelp, v.” OED Online. Oxford University Press, March 2015. Web. 19 May 2015.

Yew

lfsaldenbirch ,

Not only are the trees of the genus  Taxus posessed of mightily elastic wood – making them excellent materials for bowyery- but their sprigs are symbolic of sadness.  They’re mentioned in the year 985 in the Charter of AEthelred.

06.095 They would shoot at us with their great bows of yew,’
14.018 Now he shot with a great yew bow,

“yew, n.” OED Online. Oxford University Press, March 2015. Web. 19 May 2015.