Author: lfsaldenbirch

A Great Place to Collaborate

lfsaldenbirch

I have planned for some time to include links to colleagues’ work in this project.  That idea is beginning to put out shoots.  Sara Neilsen Legard did a delightful comparison of Gollum as written in 1937 and 1951 with an eye on what Tolkien called “the inner consistency of reality”.  I’ve linked her paper under the entry for Gollum in the Concordance.  Anyone browsing for information about Gollum will find her work.  Folks interested in all our colleagues’ work will be able to search on the tag scholar to see what I’ve found, read, and want to endorse.

One of the pleasures of Legard’s paper: she and I were curious about the same pieces of text.  She examined at the “Tolkien writing principles” level what I discuss in this blog at the sound and word level.   I hope we’ll have chance to examine our conclusions side by side.  Thank you for sharing your work, Ms. Legard!

Tolkien, J. R. R., “On Faerie Stories.” The Tolkien Reader. New York: Ballantine Books, 1966 (first Printing). Print.

An Adventure Together!

lfsaldenbirch ,

Friends, I’m about to begin the Introduction to Anglo-Saxon course at the Mythgard Institute of Signum University.  I’ll be auditing this semester – you can easily audit, or apply for credit toward your M.A.!  Please join me, and I’ll be applying what I learn to the words in our Hobbit Concordance.  Adding etymology markers will enrich the concordance and the underlying Great Spreadsheet, furthering the research we can do with our new tools.

Not only is Anglo-Saxon cool as a moose by itself, it’s taught by Dr. Michael Drout of the Lexos team!

Tune in here.  I’ll let you know which words I’ve updated with our newfound knowledge.  To get involved in an Auditors’ Homework group, let’s meet on the discussion boards for the course.

See you in class!

The Plan of the Week

lfsaldenbirch

While we wait for the recording of the presentation to be edited and made available, I will be editing tags.  Specifically, today you will see the “chat” tag which I’ll use for such conversational posts as this one as well as tagging “10K” for everything outside The Ten Thousand.  That project will go slowly, but it’s a necessary step before we begin to add new words!

Encore! Encore!

lfsaldenbirch

The sound quality of my presentation last week was not the best.  Thanks to the wizards at Signum University, I’m going to be able to give it again and re-record it!

Please join me tomorrow night,

Friday, August 14th

8PM New Hampshire Time 

by clicking this link now.  Tomorrow evening, you’ll find your sign in link in your email.  Sign in a little bit early to allow your computer to download the proper software if needed.  I can’t wait to see you!

What I miss most…

lfsaldenbirch

My monthly subscription to the Oxford English Dictionary was one of the great pleasures of this project.  Now that it’s not a school expense in support of achieving my degree, however, I must let it lapse.  See why I’m looking for funding to continue the work?  Here’s to a new subscription to OED in the near future!

Ever on!

lfsaldenbirch

Well, it’s been a week!  After the exhilarating presentation Monday night I had a couple of days of curling up in my hobbit-hole to do domestic chores and cuddle with my little one who is no longer small.  There were some difficulties with the audio of the recording, so we may re-record it in the near future.  If it’s possible for guests to listen in on that second edition, I’ll let you know.  Then the better recording will be made freely available, because that’s how Signum University rolls!

One of my goals is to find funding to continue this project at a professional pace – any advice is appreciated!

Meanwhile, I will proceed with small tasks, such as tagging the uncommon words with “10K” before I add any common words; I really would like to add “Luck” and “Chance” and “Fortune” and similar, which are within The Ten Thousand.  I’ll keep you apprised here on the Home page of what I’m up to!

Thank you all

lfsaldenbirch

What a delight to see so many names in the roster at my presentation!  Cousin Martha, all the gals from my Ravenclaw dorm, my wonderful Mythgard colleagues, thank you for your support, questions, and congratulations.

We may re-record the audio so the recording is really good quality.  I’ll put up the link as soon as it’s live.