word

Hail

lfsaldenbirch , ,

While the literal hail falls in the stone-giants’ game in chapter 4 and a metaphorical hail of arrows comes ten chapters later, most uses of “hail” are not about weather but the homophone meaning to call out in address.  The original call was an interjection wishing the addressed person good health.  Waes hael! 

  • 04.005 and the hail about
  • 10.009 and voices hailed the raft-steerers.
  • 11.031 and hailed the dwarves,
  • 13.041 Then he hailed the others,
  • 14.013 A hail of dark arrows leaped up
  • 15.032 Thorin hailed them:
  • 15.045 Again Thorin hailed them
  • 15.046 Hail Thorin!
  • 17.001 and hailed them,
  • 17.004 Hail Thorin!’
  • 18.015 Hail! Thorin,’

Harper, Douglas. “Hail”. Online Etymology Dictionary. Web.

Dwell

lfsaldenbirch ,

The meaning of “Dwell” has wandered in a tricksy manner from “deceive and lead astray” in Old English through “hinder and delay” to “linger” and finally to “make a home” by the year 1300.  Now your “dwelling” is less likely to be your homemaking than the house in which you make your home.

  • 08.131 They dwelt most often by the edges of the woods,
  • 10.007 who still dared to dwell here
  • 10.003 when dwarves dwelt
  • 14.040 that dwelt on the borders of the Desolation of the Dragon.
  • 15.002 and these are birds that dwell always
  • 15.009 in their dwellings.
  • 15.020 that once dwelt here,
  • 15.048 the dwellings of the men of Esgaroth,
  • 15.021 and dwells nearest to this place.
  • 18.031 May it bring good fortune to all his folk that dwell here after!’

Bob

lfsaldenbirch , ,

Bobbing – it’s undignified, but sometimes it’s your only option.  Bilbo tries to bow graciously and misses, it come out as bobbing on the mat.  Fili or Kili in a spider’s web bob like a toy on a wire.  Barrels bob in water, and it is the natural walking gait of elderly ravens.

  • 01.095 bobbing and puffing on the mat
  • 01.096 As for little fellow bobbing on the mat
  • 08.106 bobbing on a wire.
  • 09.020 bobbing along,
  • 09.050 and bobbing away down the current.
  • 09.056 of a bobbing
  • 09.057 Some of those that bobbed along by him
  • 15.013 and bobbed towards Thorin.

Haste

lfsaldenbirch , ,

Gollum says only one word outside of The Ten Thousand (contrast his mouth-and-throat noises and his sibilance), and that is “hasty”.  I am amused to note that each person who hears it then says it to someone else, if only for a short run.

  • 05.081 We can’t go up the tunnels so hasty. (Gollum to Bilbo)
  • 16.033 Don’t be so hasty! (Bilbo to Bard)
  • 17.029 Not so hasty! (Bard to Thorin)

“Haste” in all of its forms presents itself more and more frequently as the action of the book increases pace, culminating in seven occurrences in Chapter 17.  It signifies the intensification of action, so I have tagged it “high’.

  • 05.050 haste!’ said Gollum,
  • 05.082 We can’t go up the tunnels so hasty.
  • 05.118 and make haste.
  • 05.118 Make haste!’
  • 08.102 run hastily backwards
  • 09.003 The king had ordered them to make haste.
  • 09.061 in haste from the king’s great doors.
  • 10.027 Now make haste
  • 13.047 From here it hastens to the Gate.
  • 14.042 he hastened now down the river to the Long Lake.
  • 15.021 Bid him hasten!’
  • 15.040 Come haste! Come haste! across the waste!
  • 15.040 Come haste! Come haste! across the waste!
  • 16.005 and snow is hastening behind them.
  • 16.033 Don’t be so hasty!
  • 17.028 but if you do not hasten,
  • 17.029 Not so hasty!
  • 17.031 and was now hastening to Dale.
  • 17.033 We are hastening to our kinsmen
  • 17.035 and they hastened back
  • 17.044 and they hastened night after night through the mountains,

Attercop!

lfsaldenbirch , , ,

This good Old and Middle English word was used from the mid 1930s onward, which is a bit like being handed one’s own silver platter for collateral.  But!  We learn from Google’s Ngram viewer that it was also used from the mid 1800s right up to before publication of The Hobbit.  Most of those references seem to be dictionaries – philological attempts to gather rustic spoken words as the Grimms did, but also in the occasional written work.  The word survives as a fragment “cob” in “cobweb”

  • 08.096 Attercop! Attercop!
  • 08.097 Attercop! Attercop!
  • 08.098 no spider has ever liked being called Attercop,
  • 08.119 and ‘Attercop’ from among the trees away on the right.
  • 08.119 ‘Attercop’ made them so angry

Update 2015.06.08: since no spider has ever liked being called it, I am considering it an insult and tagging it “low”.

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