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Crunchable

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“Crunchable” is a proper adjective with its own proper entry and a quotation from H. G. Wells to attest it.  Its root word “crunch” may be a “more subdued and less obtrusive” word for that crushed-by-teeth noise.  Gollum, more subdued.  I am caught speechless.

  • 05.048 Is it scrumptiously crunchable?

“crunch, v.” OED Online. Oxford University Press, March 2015. Web. 27 May 2015.

“crunchable, adj.” OED Online. Oxford University Press, March 2015. Web. 27 May 2015.

Poof

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In the middle of the Great Goblin’s great chamber, poof! Gandalf works some of his pyrotechnic magic to effect a rescue.  I’m certain that this moment of special sound effects was designed to break tension by causing at least one young listener to shriek with audience-fear and delight at being startled.  It relieves the scene of danger with a moment of fun.

  • 04.035 and the great fire went off poof!

Baa

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Let’s test another question: are all onomatopoeic words funny, and therefore low?  At the top of the alphabet, we have the sound sheep make.  They are Beorn’s sheep, altogether remarkable, and a big piece of fairy tale in the middle of a small epic.  Definitely part of a funny scene, and we score it “low”.

[07.093] Then baa – baa – baa!  was heard, and in came some snow-white sheep led by a large coal-black ram. One bore a white cloth embroidered at the edges with figures of animals; others bore on their broad backs trays with bowls and platters and knives and wooden spoons, which the dogs took and quickly laid on the trestle-tables.

  • 07.093 Then baa – baa – baa!

Confusticate

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Bilbo wishes confustication on the dwarves, dwarves wish the same on him.  OED calls this one colloquial and its etymology “Fantastic alteration of confound and confuse”, attested in the 1891 Farmer and Henley dictionary of American slang and… 1937, The Hobbit.  We may have just been handed our own silver platter as collateral, but that’s just fine with me.

  • 01.059 Confusticate and bebother these dwarves!’
  • 06.012 confusticate him!’
  • 08.064 Hi! hobbit, confusticate you,

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

Draggle

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Recall our study of words beginning with “be-”?  The prefix “be-” is, among other things, an intensifier, as it is in “bedraggled”.  It became widely used in the late 16th century, and leaving it off of a modern word makes that word sound archaic without obscuring the meaning.  “Draggle” is the diminutive verb for getting something wet by dragging it about through the swamp or similar.  Only Thorin is draggled, and only right before he makes his Great Announcement that he is “Thorin, son of Thrain, son of Thror, King Under the Mountain”
  • 10.010 in his draggled beard;
  • 10.020 and draggled hood.

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

Gorlach, op.cit., p. 177

Flummox

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This word is labeled “colloquial or vulgar” by the OED, so it earns the “low” tag, and the entry for its etymology is too fun not to share:

probably of English dialectal origin;  flummock slovenly person, also hurry, bewilderment, flummock to make untidy, disorder, to confuse, bewilder … The formation seems to be onomatopoeic, expressive of the notion of throwing down roughly and untidily; compare flump, hummock, dialect slommock sloven.

In our story, only beloved Bilbo is ever flummoxed.

  • 01.058 who was feeling positively flummoxed,
  • 01.090 he was so flummoxed.
  • 05.014 altogether flummoxed

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

Gammer

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With its connotation of gossiper, this archaic word for grandmother has earned the “low” tag.  It is the feminine counterpart to “gaffer”, but The Hobbit does not use that word.  Instead, in this instance “gammer” is paired with “greybeards”

  • 10.018 and laughed at the greybeards and gammers who said

“gammer, n.” OED Online. Oxford University Press, March 2015. Web. 20 May 2015.

Glede

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A live coal or ember.  Tolkien spelled it here as “glede”, a Middle English form of the word and also a dialectical word for a kite – a bird of prey.  Was he helping our imaginations to picture the coals and embers flying everywhere with deadly result?

  • 14.024 to sparks and gledes.

“glede | gled, n.” OED Online. Oxford University Press, March 2015. Web. 20 May 2015.

“gleed, n.” OED Online. Oxford University Press, March 2015. Web. 20 May 2015.

Skrike

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“Skrike”, to utter a shrill, harsh cry, has the very cool past participle “skryȝte”.  OED says “dialectical” and therefore this fabulous word earns the “low” tag.

  • 04.036 shrieking and skriking,

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