The OED tells us this one is onomatopoetic from blending such sounds and senses as “flop”, “blunder”, and “flodder”, an obscolete word meaning “flood”.
“† ˈflodder, v.” OED Online. Oxford University Press, June 2015. Web. 26 July 2015.
“flounder, v.” OED Online. Oxford University Press, June 2015. Web. 26 July 2015.
I can almost hear the echoes off of bare stone.
It’s reduplicative, it’s sound play!
“flip-flap, adv., n., and adj.” OED Online, Oxford University Press, June 2017, http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/71658. Accessed 13 September 2017.
We learn that this word is onomatopoetic, less noisy than “flacker”. Both have to do with the motion of bird wings, at least in their first meanings.
“flicker, v.” OED Online. Oxford University Press, June 2015. Web. 26 July 2015.
What a cheerful door bell! This imitative, hyphenated word is completely a JRRT invention.
Although “clink-clank” is in OED as well as plain old “clink”, making this hyphenated word is a JRRT original.
“clink, n.1.” OED Online. Oxford University Press, June 2017. Web. 7 September 2017.
“clink-clank, n.” OED Online. Oxford University Press, June 2017. Web. 7 September 2017.
Say it aloud! This name is a sound-play word – hinting that the Raven language is still spoken all around us and we have lost the wit to understand.
Tolkien writes in his Essay on Phonetic Symbolism about the origin of this name – and of his father’s
rook is no longer krāg or krāk or χrk from which it took its use.
Tolkien, J. R. R.. A Secret Vice: Tolkien on Invented Languages (Kindle Locations 1954-1955). HarperCollins Publishers. Kindle Edition.
It’s a common word – stretched out and turned into a sound word! Since it’s used uncommonly, I will tag it 10K for now. It may be that I add the common uses of “Beautiful” later – could be in a separate entry, might not be!
This proper name qualified for our onomatopoeia tag. It hints that we have all heard and been surrounded by ancient raven-tongue our whole lives and have simply not the wit to hear this lingering remnant of the Third Age.
Tolkien himself writes in his Essay on Phonetic Symbolism about the origin of this name – and of his father’s
rook is no longer krāg or krāk or χrk from which it took its use.
Tolkien, J. R. R.. A Secret Vice: Tolkien on Invented Languages (Kindle Locations 1954-1955). HarperCollins Publishers. Kindle Edition.
I have debated with myself for a day on whether these Gollum-pronunciations go in the same entry as all other goblins. In the end, I decided that it would be helpful someday to a fellow scholar to see these separated out. They are food because Gollum likes to eat them when he can.
words that you were saying 