Still teasing out hyphenated words, here’s the obvious next one, still also findable under “hobbit“!
Although “Hobbit” is listed in OED – and an invention of Tolkien’s – no hyphenated forms are.
“hobbit, n.” OED Online, Oxford University Press, June 2017, http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/87449. Accessed 14 September 2017.
In our endeavor to tease out the hyphenated words and study them, I present “hobbit-boy”; the word is still listed in the entry for “hobbit” as well.
Although “Hobbit” is listed in OED – and an invention of Tolkien’s – no hyphenated forms are.
“hobbit, n.” OED Online, Oxford University Press, June 2017, http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/87449. Accessed 14 September 2017.
I have given this word its own entry in addition to entry in Grim because of our interest in hyphenated words. It refers, of course, to Bard. This word is not found in OED.
In all three cases referring to Bard – and although he speaks in a handful of chapters, it is only in chapter 14 that we see this word describing him.
I also talk about this word in the Grim entry, since we are interested in who and what are grim in any way, but out hyphen adventure leads me to separate “Grim-voiced” into its own entry as well. this compound word is JRRT original, not found in OED.
I took a dare for this summer, let’s see how I do. This post is a mini-concordance of the hyphenated words in the work as well as posts about hyphens, based on which we will explore some ideas about language and world-building. We have 402 hyphenated words to consider.
Here they are, all the food words in one post! I’ve set this up now to catch all the posts about food as well.
Word Fans, I have done it! All the way from “cellar” to “tobacco-jar“, I have scanned for all the food words, common and uncommon, and entered them into the concordance. I’m certain to have missed some, and I am humbly ready to call this my First Pass. Alert Readers who put me wise to food words I have missed will have a verse written in their honor in the style of the Tra-la-la-lalley Elves.
Let it be noted that I have already had a good argument with myself over “supplies”, and have decided that it’s not a food word. It is used in “food-supplies”, which is counted separately, and in all other instances can indicate “bandages” as well as it stands for “food”.
Next I will make some lovely graphs of food words. I’m interested in their frequency and location in the text; I also have an idea in the back of my mind to do a deeper analysis including a negative valence for those times that food words indicate a lack of food.
As I made this first pass, I also took the chance to improve my file of the text. I’ve eliminated many of the phrase-breaks which left only one-word phrases, fussed with punctuation breaks, and started keeping an eye out for use or non-use of a marked subjunctive.
There are rather over a gross of instances of the word “good” in The Hobbit, but for now we will focus on just one form, “goods”. OED tells us that “good” as
III. A particular thing that is good or beneficial.
is rare in the singular, and that the usual use is in the plural form with a plural verb – “goods are” – although with a singular verb, as a collective noun, is acceptable although rare – “goods is”.
In fact the entire entry for “Good” is absolutely fascinating and a long, long rabbit hole down which to fall. Goods can be commodities, livestock, acts of piety, and in our case, food.
“good, adj., n., adv., and int.” OED Online. Oxford University Press, September 2016. Web. 4 October 2016.
The first time we encountered this word, it applied to a tactile sensation, not gustatory, so I skimmed right past it, but now – bitterness we can taste. That’s a food word to me!
I’ve been amazed, as I read this wonderful text so closely, to see how JRRT does not flag the subjunctive when he could. I suspect it will be the subject of a later study.
words that you were saying 