discussion

Elf compounds

lfsaldenbirch , ,

In comparing the hyphenated words, I have reached the elf compounds.  OED attests all of the words below.  Only “elf-fire” and “elf-friend” overlap with the elf compounds of The Hobbit!

I am particularly intrigued by words of elven persons.  OED has the compound with folk, girl, kingdom, lady, queen, and woman, while The Hobbit has guard, host, king, lord, maiden, and prince.

Now… you know me, Word Fans.  I dug a little deeper.  “Elven” is a noun, obviously, meaning a female elf, like fox/fixin and monk/minchin.  In its second meaning, however, it is a combining appositive or attributive form:

 2. Comb. (referring to a kind of imaginary being in the works of J. R. R. Tolkien).

and Elf-king is attested therein.

To be thorough, “elvish” is the OED’s adjective for elf, also spelled “elfish”.  Not “elven”.  That’s pure JRRT.

elf-arrow
elf-bolt
elf-bore
elf-castle
elf-child
elf-craft
elf-cup
elf-dance
elf-dart
elf-dock
elf-fire – found in The Hobbit
elf-flame
elf-flower
elf-folk
elf-friend – found in The Hobbit
elf-girl
elf-god
elf-horn
elf-house
elf-key
elf-kingdom
elf-knight
elf-knot
elf-lady
elf-land
elf-light
elf-like
elf-lock
elf-queen
elf-rod
elf-shoot
elf-shot
elf-speech
elf-stone
elf-stricken
elf-striking
elf-struck
elf-taken
elf-twisted
elf-wing
elf-woman
elf-wort

“elf, n.1.” OED Online, Oxford University Press, June 2017, http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/60431. Accessed 13 September 2017.

“elf-lock, n.” OED Online, Oxford University Press, June 2017, http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/60439. Accessed 13 September

“ˈelf-shoot, v.” OED Online, Oxford University Press, June 2017, http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/60441. Accessed 13 September 2017.

“ˈelf-shot, n.” OED Online, Oxford University Press, June 2017, http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/60442. Accessed 13 September 2017.

“ˈelven, n.” OED Online, Oxford University Press, June 2017, http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/60661. Accessed 13 September 2017.

“elvish, adj.” OED Online, Oxford University Press, June 2017, http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/60664. Accessed 13 September 2017.

Hobbit Sayings: appetizer

lfsaldenbirch ,

Richard Blackwelder collected some of his favorite wise sayings in “Tolkien Phraseology”, a booklet companion to his thesaurus.  In honor of his method, I will share a few tidbits I found as I meandered this path.

[05.008] Hobbits are not quite like ordinary people; … they have a fund of wisdom and wise sayings that men have mostly never heard or have forgotten long ago.

Blackwelder, Richard E. Tolkien Phraseology: A Companion to A Tolkien Thesaurus Tolkien Archives Fund, Marquette University, 1990. Print.

Gl- Words

lfsaldenbirch ,

Well, gosh.  I observed but not out loud that “gl-” does have a lot to do with visual imagery – glimpse, glimmer, glitter.

This week among other things I am upgrading several concordance entries from “brief” (tagged just so) to having some kind of commentary.  I ran up against “gloat”, looked it up a bit pro forma, and lo and behold, “gloat” does not mean what I thought it meant.  It is a visual imagery word.

Today I am doing a mini-lesson on the “gl-” words!  In a couple of hours, you should be able to follow this “gl-” tag to see what we can see!  Please note that I explored these words this morning in reverse alphabetical order, so to follow my stream of thought you should begin with “glum” and work your way to “glade” in the tag list.  “Glimpse”, “glimmer”, and “gleam” I had done way back in May, not thinking of this little exploration.

On the Origin of Dwarven Names

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Douglas Anderson notes in his annotation to The Hobbit that the dwarf names come (directly or by rhyming with something direct) from the Old Norse poem “Voluspá”, part of the Poetic Edda.  Anderson includes the relevant passage from the poem and short discussion.

My own theory on why Tolkien chose these names is quite simple:  when one is telling the children an exciting story, one uses the first names to spring into mind, like Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen.  So much the better if they rhyme.  Ask my kids sometime about the adventures of Mrs. Oliphaunt, a royal elephant in India, and her friends Niobe, Marissa, and Louise.  Backward alphabet to the rescue.

Tolkien, J.R.R. The Annotated Hobbit.  Revised and expanded edition annotated by Douglas A. Anderson. Houghton Mifflin Company. Boston. Print.

More Hyphen Thoughts

lfsaldenbirch ,

I had the great pleasure of talking with Tech Support about the graph I shared on July 10th:

Hyphenated Graph

Tech Support made a few interpretations –

  • Clearly Bilbo’s native language of Westron is perfectly suited to hobbit life and has many specific words relevant to the Shire and the hosting of tea-parties that English simply can’t translate and hyphenated words must do to cover the inadequacy.
  • British English is plenty concerned with hunger and sogginess and dimness, so the Mirkwood scene was directly translatable into common English words.
  • He hazards a guess that Westron is agglutinative, that it is a more parochial and conservative language than a language that has reached the “modern” stage.

Shout-out to Mark Rosenfelder whose Language Construction Kit moved Tech Support from actively resisting the conventions of grammar (as nine-year-olds are wont to do) to giving Mama grammar lessons so she can do her thesis work.

The Very Middlemost Word

lfsaldenbirch ,

Were you enchanted by the word and number play of The Faerie Queen, too, Word Fans?  I’m pleased to report that by word count, and including Chapter titles, the very middlemost word of The Hobbit is “creeping”.

[08.058]  After a good deal of creeping and crawling they peered round the trunks and looked into a clearing where some trees had been felled and the ground levelled. There were many people there, elvish-looking folk, all dressed in green and brown and sitting on sawn rings of the felled trees in a great circle. There was a fire in their midst and there were torches fastened to some of the trees round about; but most splendid sight of all: they were eating and drinking and laughing merrily.

Pivotal  moment?  Yes, indeed!