low

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.

Ho!

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Heave ho! is the sort of thing one chants when hauling on the lines of a sailing ship in order to keep time with other sailors.  As a kind of work song, I’ve tagged it as low.  Beorn’s use of it in Chapter 7 is not the same, but we’ll keep it here as an interjection and non-lexical vocable.

  • 04.020 Ho, ho! my lad!
  • 04.020 Ho, ho! my lad!
  • 04.022 and to the ugly laughter of their ho, ho! my lad!
  • 04.022 and to the ugly laughter of their ho, ho! my lad!
  • 07.042 O ho,
  • 09.049 Heave ho! Splash plump!

No citation.  I grew up in a region where learning 18th century nautical history and jargon and drinking songs were just part of the local picture.

Lob

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A “lob” – obsolete word – is a spider from Old English loppe.  But it’s also (separate word, spelled the same) a dialectical word for country bumpkin or a lout (a Scandinavian-rooted word).

Oh, yes.  This is why I did this.  One syllable.  Two obsolete words.  Classic bullying technique – what’s wrong with me calling you a spider?  It’s just a word for spider!  But we both know it means lout – and in Norse it means short and fat and clumsy and bumpkin.  Bilbo needed to pull out the big guns, word-wise, to distract the spiders from his friends, and he did it in three letters.  The master craftsman at play.

08.100 Lazy Lob and crazy Cob
08.119 Soon there came the sound of ‘Lazy Lob’

“† lob, n.1.” OED Online. Oxford University Press, March 2015. Web. 20 May 2015.

“lob, n.2.” OED Online. Oxford University Press, March 2015. Web. 20 May 2015.

Mead (meadow)

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While we contemplate this regional word for meadow, let’s enjoy some fermented honey and water.  Mead the drink is discussed here and the honey comes from flowers, which meadows certainly have!  It’s a low word… in a poem sung by elves.  Fascinating.

  • 09.053 Back to pasture, back to mead,

“mead, n.2.” 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.

Tomnoddy

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“Tomnoddy” means a foolish or stupid person and Tolkien says right there in the text that it’s an insult.  We’re tagging it as “low”.  Trivia, Tom-Noddy is also a local name for a the puffin (Fratercula arctica).  Notice something that Tolkien does now and then?  He has made a compound word out of a hyphenated one (click here for our discussion of making hyphenated words out of two singles).  There are more examples which we will be interested in later, and these feed my theory of Tolkien reminding us that he is merely translating from Bilbo’s Westron writings.

  • 08.097 Old Tomnoddy,
  • 08.097 Old Tomnoddy can’t spy me!
  • 08.098 and Tomnoddy of course is insulting to anybody.

“Tom-noddy, n.” OED Online. Oxford University Press, March 2015. Web. 20 May 2015.

Delve

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I am learning humility.

The word “delve” is labelled by the OED as northern and Scottish – and right up against Wales, one source says it is specifically to dig two spades deep.  Clearly that’s a regional, parochial word, one which I should by my own arbitrary rule tag as “low”.  It’s also in the middle of a rather high-register poem in a position rhyming with “elves”, which by any first approximation should make it be tagged “high”.  I have tagged it both.

  • 01.078 And harps of gold; where no man delves

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