Author: lfsaldenbirch

Kitchen

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Coming around 3,000th most common of the words in Project Gutenberg, we begin close to the heart of Bag End, but Gollum knocks all thoughts of kitchens out of the story.  “Kitchen” is a word of Dutch and German heritage, but ultimately from the Latin verb coquere, to cook.

01.002 kitchens, dining rooms
01.059 and Dwalin at the door of the kitchen,
01.068 in the middle of the kitchen trying to see what they were doing.
02.001 in the kitchen.
02.002 in the kitchen before turning out the dining-room.
05.002 in his own kitchen at home –

“kitchen, n.” OED Online. Oxford University Press, March 2016. Web. 10 March 2016.

Eat

lfsaldenbirch , , ,

We begin in paragraph 01.001.  Please notice that “eats” in 05.028 is a sound-play use, “We eats it”, with Gollum adding an S where it’s not usually heard.

  • 01.001 with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat:
  • 01.051 for the late-comers to eat
  • 01.060 The dwarves ate
  • 01.060 and ate,
  • 01.123 to eat,
  • 02.032 He had eaten most,
  • 02.046 just to be et by you and Bert.
  • 02.046 You’ve et a village
  • 02.081 and eat them later –
  • 02.116 and looked fit to eat,
  • 03.001 and their horses had more to eat than they had;
  • 03.028 “Mind Bilbo doesn’t eat all the cakes!”
  • 04.024 For goblins eat horses
  • 05.022 whether he was good to eat,
  • 05.028 we eats it,
  • 05.029 that could save him from being eaten.
  • 05.031 the idea of eating was rather on his mind.
  • 05.034 who was still thinking uncomfortably about eating.
  • 05.047 and have not the danger of being eaten to disturb your thinking.
  • 06.039 for something to eat;
  • 06.039 and he ate three wild strawberries that he found on its bank,
  • 06.056 He’ll be eaten if we don’t do something,’
  • 06.068 for they did not eat such creatures)
  • 06.074 fry them, boil them and eat them hot?
  • 06.088 with next to nothing to eat,
  • 06.094 Bilbo was not going to be eaten after all.
  • 07.023 He does not eat them;
  • 07.023 neither does he hunt or eat wild animals.
  • 07.024 and then Bilbo felt so hungry that he would have eaten acorns,
  • 07.060 Killed, eaten, gone home?’
  • 07.090 Let’s have something to eat!’
  • 07.094 All the time they ate,
  • 07.112 moving off to find something to eat as quick as he could.
  • 07.116 he had eaten two whole loaves
  • 07.121 Not eaten up by Wargs or goblins or wicked bears yet I see’ ;
  • 07.126 and they were good to eat,
  • 07.126 will be wholesome to eat or to drink.
  • 07.129 Soon after midday they ate with Beorn for the last time,
  • 08.036 there was practically nothing left to eat or to drink.
  • 08.046 That night they ate their very last scraps
  • 08.048 When he heard that there was nothing to eat,
  • 08.048 and I could not count or describe the things there were to eat
  • 08.057 all the good things that were being eaten,
  • 08.058 they were eating
  • 08.083 Aye, they’ll make fine eating,
  • 08.104 to see which was the juiciest to eat.
  • 08.110 We will eat you
  • 08.125 if there had been anything to eat.
  • 09.061 in which it had eaten out a wide bay.
  • 10.014 I could eat anything
  • 12.060 Let me tell you I ate six ponies last night
  • 12.060 and eat all the others before long.
  • 12.062 that I can eat a dwarf-ridden pony
  • 12.072 and I have eaten his people like a wolf among sheep,
  • 13.001 Little they ate
  • 13.010 and then eat me,
  • 15.058 You may eat that,
  • 18.048 and eaten much of your bread.

Hotfoot and Lightfooted

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Chapter 14 contains the lovely words “hotfoot” and “lightfooted”, their only appearance in the entire book.  I was struck by this and imagine that it is not coincidence, but rather that these sections were written close to one another temporally and Tolkien was taken with a particular kind of word or sound or set of memories which evoked the words together.

“Hotfoot” is used of Bard the Bowman and by the OED means “hastily”.

[14.009] There was once more a tremendous excitement and enthusiasm.  But the grim-voiced fellow ran hotfoot to the Master.  ‘The dragon is coming or I am a fool!’ he cried. ‘Cut the bridges!  To arms!  To arms!’

“Lightfoot” in comparison means “lightly, as of little weight”

[14.042] But the king, when he received the prayers of Bard, had pity, for he was the lord of a good and kindly people; so turning his march, which had at first been direct towards the Mountain, he hastened now down the river to the Long Lake.  He had not boats or rafts enough for his host, and they were forced to go the slower way by foot; but great store of goods he sent ahead by water. Still elves are lightfooted, and though they were not in these days much used to the marches and the treacherous lands between the Forest and the Lake, their going was swift.

“hotfoot, adv. and adj.” OED Online. Oxford University Press, December 2015. Web. 18 February 2016.

“light-footed, adj.” OED Online. Oxford University Press, December 2015. Web. 18 February 2016.

Itchy Doublechecking

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I had written a note to myself to check on the word “itch“.  It’s obvious to me that that’s a common word, yet it showed up when I filtered out The Ten Thousand most common words.  If that went incorrectly, there could be a huge problem with the whole filtering process.  But no!  “Itch” is around word 38,000 and “itching”, the word which is actually in the book at 12.076 comes in around 40,000.

Rescuing lovely uncommon forms of common words

lfsaldenbirch

In the beginning of this project, I needed to simplify our list and I bid farewell to such beauties as “shod” and “unbeknown”.  My current occupations, now that I am free to expand our concordance in any manner that is useful to us, is to find those delicious words and record them properly in our project.  I have begun with those which I noted in this blog as I had to wave them goodbye.