Ring of words, or, The truth about Wormtongue
I had a crappy past couple of weeks, so I'm glad to finally be back and looking through books again.
This book is about Tolkien's use of words, and some words that he made up or rather made use of after it wasn't used for centuries. And other creative stuff he did with words. Most of the book is a long glossary with details on each word's history: ent, elf, precious, worm/wyrm, confusticate and bebother those dwarves. Obviously I can't vouch for accuracy, but it was fascinating.
"It is a little-known fact that, after the Great War, J.R.R. Tolkien's first job was as an assistant on the Oxford English Dictionary. Yet the experience proved to be of enormous significance for his subsequent endeavours, literary as well as academic. He later said of it: 'I learned more in those two years than in any equal period of my life.'" [from jacket description]
"[The authors] set the scene with a detailed description of Tolkien's own contribution to the Dictionary project before going on to explore his skills as a craftsman with words. Then, through individual Word Studies which will intrigue and enlighten all sections of Tolkien's worldwide audience, they examine -- in considerable and illuminating detail -- over 100 of the most interesting words as used by Tolkien in his writing."
"An etymology can truly be the unlocking of a word-hoard. A whole history of peoples and rulers, wars and trade, inventions, mysteries, beliefs, fears, and loves can spring to life from the investigation of a single word's origin. Take, for example, the etymology of WALNUT, on which Tolkien himself worked. It sells us, of course, all the related words in the Germanic languages. It also tells us: (1) that the first English attestation of the word is the oldest in any Germanic language; (2) that its appearance in Old English is relatively late, and we don't know whether it goes back to much earlier times in England, or whether in 1050 it was a recent borrowing; (3) that the word is a compound whose first element originally meant "Celtic or Roman foreigner": on the European continent this normally referred to the Romans or Romance speakers, but in Old English it was restricted to Celtic people (and is now found in the name Wales); (4) that in the languages descended from Latin the ordinary word for 'nut' (e.g. French noix), when not qualified by another word, means 'walnut' (whereas the original Germanic meaning of nut and its relatives was 'hazelnut'). This etymology takes us back to the time of the Roman Empire, when walnuts were relatively exotic items for the Germanic peoples, and when foreigners living to the west and south of the Germanic realms were indiscriminately called by a word which in English has become the word Welsh."
Really?!
"The most dramatic example of Tolkien's imaginative response to a single word is surely his creation of the Ents from the single, almost unknown Old English word ent. His own comments highlight the process by which word met idea:
'As usually with me they grew rather out of their name than the other way about. I always felt that something ought to be done about the peculiar A[nglo-] Saxon word ent for a "giant" or a mighty person of long ago -- to whom all old works were ascribed. If it had a slightly philosophical tone (though in ordinary philology it is "quite unconnected with any present participle of the verb to be") that also interested me.' (Lett. 157, 27 November 1954)
'And I like Ents now because they do not seem to have anything to do with me. I daresay something had been going on in the "unconscious" for some time, and that accounts for my feeling throughout, especially when stuck, that I was not inventing but reporting (imperfectly) and had at times to wait till "what really happened" came through. But looking back analytically I should say that Ents are composed of philology, literature, and life. They owe their name to the eald enta geweorc of Anglo-Saxon, and their connexion with stone. Their part in the story is due, I think, to my bitter disappointment and disgust from schooldays with the shabby use made in Shakespeare of the coming of "Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill" : I longed to devise a setting in which the trees might really march to war.' (Lett. 163, 7 June 1955)"
"'Confusticate and bebother those dwarves!' (Hobbit, ch. i)
Confusticate means 'confound,' and the OED quotes this sentence from The Hobbit as its most recent example. The word is, in effect, an elaboration of 'confuse' with a Latinate suffix, as though a less than well-educated rustic or schoolboy were trying to sound impressive."
"Dumbledore: many of those familiar with J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books, or the films based on them, have been surprised to discover that the name of the headmaster of Hogwarts School also occurs in Tolkien's writings. (They migh be even more surprised to find it in Thomas Hardy's The mayor of Casterbridge.) The word is recorded by the OED as a dialect name for the bumblebee (and certain other insects), with quotations dating back to 1787. Tolkien used it in some versions of his poem 'Errantry,' in which the 'merry passenger,' we are told, 'battled with the Dumbledores' (HME VII. 86, 88)"
Sounds like the time I battled some dumbledores, except that they totally chased me away for miles. We're still at war.
"After the Norman conquest, in Brut, elves are still conceived of as human-sized and powerful -- most notably when the wounded King Arthur is borne away to Avalon, to Argante þere quene, aluen swið sceone (to Argante the queen, the Elf most fair). But by the 16th century, the concept attached to the word elf, while still that of a being of a different order, having certain powers over human beings and dwelling beyond our reach, had become that of a diminutive, airy creature whose exploits are described with whimsy and sentimentality rather than dread and awe. By this time, too, the French-derived word fairy has appeared, used at first to denote the elf-realm or elf-magic. Tolkien had strong antipathy to this established tradition. In making his momentous break with it, he obviously considered abandoning the word; he refers in a letter to the "creatures which in English I call misleadingly Elves" (Lett. 131), and says "I now deeply regret having used Elves, though this is a word in ancestry and original meaning suitable enough" (Lett. 151, September 1954). But though he abandoned gnome, he never found a replacement for elf. Its deep roots in Germanic legend probably induced him to stick to it."
"In his earliest Elvish tales, Tolkien used the word Gnome for the second of the great Elf-kindreds, corresponding to the Elvish word Noldo (or its predecessor). He persisted with this use for a long time, believing (as Tom Shippey observes in The road to Middle-Earth, p. 333) that his readers would understand this in the light of the Greek word gnōmē, which is connected with gnōsis "knowledge." However, this erudite use of the word was always in danger of being undermined by association with nursery tales, or with the absurd bearded and red-capped garden gnomes (probably introduced in around the 1860s and widespread in Britain by the 1940s). It is just as well that he decided to replace it with the Elvish word. Even so, the language generally known as Sindarin was called Gnomish even in some writings later than The lord of the rings."
"morrow. 'Through halls of iron and darkling door, and woods of nightshade morrowless.' (LR I. ix) Morrow is familiar to most people as meaning 'the day after this one,' but its earlier sense was 'morning,' in use from Old English to the 16th century and revived as an archaism in the 19th century. The Old English form was morgen, which split into two forms: one kept the -n but was contracted into morn, from which morning was formed, and one developed into the Middle English morwen, then lost the -n, and finally became morrow. From the latter Tolkien formed morrowdim (LR Appendices) -- a noteworthy compound because dim is not usually a noun -- and morrowless, which had previously been used to mean 'having no tomorrows,' but is also listed in the OED as meaning 'morningless,' quoting Tolkien's verse."
"Precious is a word with a long history in English before Tolkien made it his own (or Gollum's). It is most widely used as an adjective: the OED's entry for the word traces it back to Middle English. But it is as a noun that it has become most strongly associated with Tolkien, and with the Ring: Gollum's use of the word immediately precedes the first appearance of the Ring in The Hobbit, and 'his last wail Precious' marks its destruction in the Cracks of Doom. (Gollum also uses 'precious' to refer to himself, but the Ring is distinguished as 'the Precious,' with a capital letter.)"
"sister-son. [... some etymology ...] But why is this compound important, as its long history from Old English to the 17th century implies? The answer lies in Anglo-Saxon and ancient Germanic custom. As in many societies, the relationship between a man and his sister's son was held to be especially close and binding (possibly because the uncertainties of paternity made a man more confident of blood-relationship to his sister's son than to the offspring of his own marriage). It was the sister-son's duty to champion his uncle. The hero of the epic Beowulf is described as the son of the sister of King Hygelac, for whom he loyally fights and whom he eventually succeeds. To fail, betray, or harm one's mother's brother was particularly heinous, which is why Mordred's usurpation of King Arthur, his maternal uncle, is so grievous. [ ... ] The same customs apply in Middle-Earth. After the Battle of Five Armies we are told that the dwarves Fili and Kili fell defending the mortally wounded Thorin Oakenshield, 'for he was their mother's elder brother' (Hobbit, ch. xviii). On this Tolkien comments: 'The sentiment of affection for sister's children was strong among all peoples of the Third Age, but less so among Dwarves than Men or Elves among whom it was strongest' ('The Making of Appendix A' in HME XII. 285). Similarly the important position of Éomer in the kingdom of Rohan is due to his being the son of Théodwyn, sister of King Théoden."
"wolf-rider. 'He [Saruman] has taken Orcs into his service, and Wolf-riders, and evil Men.' (LR II. ii) 'Swiftly, a scout rode back and reported that wolf-riders were abroad in the valley.' (LR II. vii)
Orcs riding on the backs of wolves first appear in Tolkien's manuscripts in the second version of the 'Tale of Tinúviel' (HME II. 44). they are quite often mentioned in early accounts of the battles of the First Age (for example, in 'The Fall of Gondolin': HME II. 190). In The Hobbit (chapter vi) we learn: 'They [the goblins] often got the Wargs to help and shared the plunder with them. Sometimes they rode on wolves like men do on horses.' Tolkien may have had plans to depict a pitched battle between the Rohirrim and wolf-riders (HME VII. 412), but they were not realized. However, wolf-riders are memorably portrayed in the film version of The Two Towers (2002).
References to the riding of wolves surface occasionally in Germanic mythology, though there they seem to be associated with female figures of magic power. A notable instance occurs in the tale of the death of Balder in the Norse Prose Edda: unable to launch the ship on which Balder's body is borne, the gods send for the giantess Hyrrokken, who arrives riding a wolf with serpents for reins. Another (or perhaps the same) figure appears in The Lay of Helgi Hjörvarðsson in the Poetic Edda, in which we are told that Heðinn, travelling in the forest, met a troll-woman riding on a wolf, with a rein made of serpents."
"worm. 'Every worm has his weak spot.' (Hobbit, ch. xii)
More often than not in The Hobbit, Smaug is referred to by the familiar term 'dragon,' but on a few occasions the ancient Germanic word 'worm' is used. Éowyn says of the horn she gives to Merry at their parting that it 'came from the hoard of Scatha the Worm' (LR VI. vi). In The Silmarillion the dragon Glaurung is also called the Great Worm, and Túrin addresses him as 'Worm of Morgoth.' [ ... ] In Old English, the word worm was applied to various kinds of animal that creep or crawl, including reptiles and caterpillars as well as what we now call 'worms,' and one of its specific uses was for 'a serpent, snake, dragon.' This particular use of the word is an ancient Germanic one, found also in related languages. In Old Norse, for example, ormr is prominent in heroic poetry as the word for a dragon, just as Old English wyrm is in Beowulf.
A dragon's power lies not only in fiery breath and bodily strength, but also in the ability to trap a victim into suspicion and delusion with cunning words. This characteristic is displayed both by Glaurung, entrapping Túrin in a web of lies (Silmarillion, ch. xxi), and by Smaug, who raises suspicions in Bilbo's mind about his companions the dwarves (Hobbit, ch. xii). This meaning also underlies the significance of the Gríma nickname Wormtongue, which is intended to liken the evil counsellor not to a paltry earthworm, but to a deceitful reptile."
The ring of words : Tolkien and the Oxford English dictionary, by Peter Gilliver, Jeremy Marshall, Edmund Weiner.
This book is about Tolkien's use of words, and some words that he made up or rather made use of after it wasn't used for centuries. And other creative stuff he did with words. Most of the book is a long glossary with details on each word's history: ent, elf, precious, worm/wyrm, confusticate and bebother those dwarves. Obviously I can't vouch for accuracy, but it was fascinating.
"It is a little-known fact that, after the Great War, J.R.R. Tolkien's first job was as an assistant on the Oxford English Dictionary. Yet the experience proved to be of enormous significance for his subsequent endeavours, literary as well as academic. He later said of it: 'I learned more in those two years than in any equal period of my life.'" [from jacket description]
"[The authors] set the scene with a detailed description of Tolkien's own contribution to the Dictionary project before going on to explore his skills as a craftsman with words. Then, through individual Word Studies which will intrigue and enlighten all sections of Tolkien's worldwide audience, they examine -- in considerable and illuminating detail -- over 100 of the most interesting words as used by Tolkien in his writing."
"An etymology can truly be the unlocking of a word-hoard. A whole history of peoples and rulers, wars and trade, inventions, mysteries, beliefs, fears, and loves can spring to life from the investigation of a single word's origin. Take, for example, the etymology of WALNUT, on which Tolkien himself worked. It sells us, of course, all the related words in the Germanic languages. It also tells us: (1) that the first English attestation of the word is the oldest in any Germanic language; (2) that its appearance in Old English is relatively late, and we don't know whether it goes back to much earlier times in England, or whether in 1050 it was a recent borrowing; (3) that the word is a compound whose first element originally meant "Celtic or Roman foreigner": on the European continent this normally referred to the Romans or Romance speakers, but in Old English it was restricted to Celtic people (and is now found in the name Wales); (4) that in the languages descended from Latin the ordinary word for 'nut' (e.g. French noix), when not qualified by another word, means 'walnut' (whereas the original Germanic meaning of nut and its relatives was 'hazelnut'). This etymology takes us back to the time of the Roman Empire, when walnuts were relatively exotic items for the Germanic peoples, and when foreigners living to the west and south of the Germanic realms were indiscriminately called by a word which in English has become the word Welsh."
Really?!
"The most dramatic example of Tolkien's imaginative response to a single word is surely his creation of the Ents from the single, almost unknown Old English word ent. His own comments highlight the process by which word met idea:
'As usually with me they grew rather out of their name than the other way about. I always felt that something ought to be done about the peculiar A[nglo-] Saxon word ent for a "giant" or a mighty person of long ago -- to whom all old works were ascribed. If it had a slightly philosophical tone (though in ordinary philology it is "quite unconnected with any present participle of the verb to be") that also interested me.' (Lett. 157, 27 November 1954)
'And I like Ents now because they do not seem to have anything to do with me. I daresay something had been going on in the "unconscious" for some time, and that accounts for my feeling throughout, especially when stuck, that I was not inventing but reporting (imperfectly) and had at times to wait till "what really happened" came through. But looking back analytically I should say that Ents are composed of philology, literature, and life. They owe their name to the eald enta geweorc of Anglo-Saxon, and their connexion with stone. Their part in the story is due, I think, to my bitter disappointment and disgust from schooldays with the shabby use made in Shakespeare of the coming of "Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill" : I longed to devise a setting in which the trees might really march to war.' (Lett. 163, 7 June 1955)"
"'Confusticate and bebother those dwarves!' (Hobbit, ch. i)
Confusticate means 'confound,' and the OED quotes this sentence from The Hobbit as its most recent example. The word is, in effect, an elaboration of 'confuse' with a Latinate suffix, as though a less than well-educated rustic or schoolboy were trying to sound impressive."
"Dumbledore: many of those familiar with J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books, or the films based on them, have been surprised to discover that the name of the headmaster of Hogwarts School also occurs in Tolkien's writings. (They migh be even more surprised to find it in Thomas Hardy's The mayor of Casterbridge.) The word is recorded by the OED as a dialect name for the bumblebee (and certain other insects), with quotations dating back to 1787. Tolkien used it in some versions of his poem 'Errantry,' in which the 'merry passenger,' we are told, 'battled with the Dumbledores' (HME VII. 86, 88)"
Sounds like the time I battled some dumbledores, except that they totally chased me away for miles. We're still at war.
"After the Norman conquest, in Brut, elves are still conceived of as human-sized and powerful -- most notably when the wounded King Arthur is borne away to Avalon, to Argante þere quene, aluen swið sceone (to Argante the queen, the Elf most fair). But by the 16th century, the concept attached to the word elf, while still that of a being of a different order, having certain powers over human beings and dwelling beyond our reach, had become that of a diminutive, airy creature whose exploits are described with whimsy and sentimentality rather than dread and awe. By this time, too, the French-derived word fairy has appeared, used at first to denote the elf-realm or elf-magic. Tolkien had strong antipathy to this established tradition. In making his momentous break with it, he obviously considered abandoning the word; he refers in a letter to the "creatures which in English I call misleadingly Elves" (Lett. 131), and says "I now deeply regret having used Elves, though this is a word in ancestry and original meaning suitable enough" (Lett. 151, September 1954). But though he abandoned gnome, he never found a replacement for elf. Its deep roots in Germanic legend probably induced him to stick to it."
"In his earliest Elvish tales, Tolkien used the word Gnome for the second of the great Elf-kindreds, corresponding to the Elvish word Noldo (or its predecessor). He persisted with this use for a long time, believing (as Tom Shippey observes in The road to Middle-Earth, p. 333) that his readers would understand this in the light of the Greek word gnōmē, which is connected with gnōsis "knowledge." However, this erudite use of the word was always in danger of being undermined by association with nursery tales, or with the absurd bearded and red-capped garden gnomes (probably introduced in around the 1860s and widespread in Britain by the 1940s). It is just as well that he decided to replace it with the Elvish word. Even so, the language generally known as Sindarin was called Gnomish even in some writings later than The lord of the rings."
"morrow. 'Through halls of iron and darkling door, and woods of nightshade morrowless.' (LR I. ix) Morrow is familiar to most people as meaning 'the day after this one,' but its earlier sense was 'morning,' in use from Old English to the 16th century and revived as an archaism in the 19th century. The Old English form was morgen, which split into two forms: one kept the -n but was contracted into morn, from which morning was formed, and one developed into the Middle English morwen, then lost the -n, and finally became morrow. From the latter Tolkien formed morrowdim (LR Appendices) -- a noteworthy compound because dim is not usually a noun -- and morrowless, which had previously been used to mean 'having no tomorrows,' but is also listed in the OED as meaning 'morningless,' quoting Tolkien's verse."
"Precious is a word with a long history in English before Tolkien made it his own (or Gollum's). It is most widely used as an adjective: the OED's entry for the word traces it back to Middle English. But it is as a noun that it has become most strongly associated with Tolkien, and with the Ring: Gollum's use of the word immediately precedes the first appearance of the Ring in The Hobbit, and 'his last wail Precious' marks its destruction in the Cracks of Doom. (Gollum also uses 'precious' to refer to himself, but the Ring is distinguished as 'the Precious,' with a capital letter.)"
"sister-son. [... some etymology ...] But why is this compound important, as its long history from Old English to the 17th century implies? The answer lies in Anglo-Saxon and ancient Germanic custom. As in many societies, the relationship between a man and his sister's son was held to be especially close and binding (possibly because the uncertainties of paternity made a man more confident of blood-relationship to his sister's son than to the offspring of his own marriage). It was the sister-son's duty to champion his uncle. The hero of the epic Beowulf is described as the son of the sister of King Hygelac, for whom he loyally fights and whom he eventually succeeds. To fail, betray, or harm one's mother's brother was particularly heinous, which is why Mordred's usurpation of King Arthur, his maternal uncle, is so grievous. [ ... ] The same customs apply in Middle-Earth. After the Battle of Five Armies we are told that the dwarves Fili and Kili fell defending the mortally wounded Thorin Oakenshield, 'for he was their mother's elder brother' (Hobbit, ch. xviii). On this Tolkien comments: 'The sentiment of affection for sister's children was strong among all peoples of the Third Age, but less so among Dwarves than Men or Elves among whom it was strongest' ('The Making of Appendix A' in HME XII. 285). Similarly the important position of Éomer in the kingdom of Rohan is due to his being the son of Théodwyn, sister of King Théoden."
"wolf-rider. 'He [Saruman] has taken Orcs into his service, and Wolf-riders, and evil Men.' (LR II. ii) 'Swiftly, a scout rode back and reported that wolf-riders were abroad in the valley.' (LR II. vii)
Orcs riding on the backs of wolves first appear in Tolkien's manuscripts in the second version of the 'Tale of Tinúviel' (HME II. 44). they are quite often mentioned in early accounts of the battles of the First Age (for example, in 'The Fall of Gondolin': HME II. 190). In The Hobbit (chapter vi) we learn: 'They [the goblins] often got the Wargs to help and shared the plunder with them. Sometimes they rode on wolves like men do on horses.' Tolkien may have had plans to depict a pitched battle between the Rohirrim and wolf-riders (HME VII. 412), but they were not realized. However, wolf-riders are memorably portrayed in the film version of The Two Towers (2002).
References to the riding of wolves surface occasionally in Germanic mythology, though there they seem to be associated with female figures of magic power. A notable instance occurs in the tale of the death of Balder in the Norse Prose Edda: unable to launch the ship on which Balder's body is borne, the gods send for the giantess Hyrrokken, who arrives riding a wolf with serpents for reins. Another (or perhaps the same) figure appears in The Lay of Helgi Hjörvarðsson in the Poetic Edda, in which we are told that Heðinn, travelling in the forest, met a troll-woman riding on a wolf, with a rein made of serpents."
"worm. 'Every worm has his weak spot.' (Hobbit, ch. xii)
More often than not in The Hobbit, Smaug is referred to by the familiar term 'dragon,' but on a few occasions the ancient Germanic word 'worm' is used. Éowyn says of the horn she gives to Merry at their parting that it 'came from the hoard of Scatha the Worm' (LR VI. vi). In The Silmarillion the dragon Glaurung is also called the Great Worm, and Túrin addresses him as 'Worm of Morgoth.' [ ... ] In Old English, the word worm was applied to various kinds of animal that creep or crawl, including reptiles and caterpillars as well as what we now call 'worms,' and one of its specific uses was for 'a serpent, snake, dragon.' This particular use of the word is an ancient Germanic one, found also in related languages. In Old Norse, for example, ormr is prominent in heroic poetry as the word for a dragon, just as Old English wyrm is in Beowulf.
A dragon's power lies not only in fiery breath and bodily strength, but also in the ability to trap a victim into suspicion and delusion with cunning words. This characteristic is displayed both by Glaurung, entrapping Túrin in a web of lies (Silmarillion, ch. xxi), and by Smaug, who raises suspicions in Bilbo's mind about his companions the dwarves (Hobbit, ch. xii). This meaning also underlies the significance of the Gríma nickname Wormtongue, which is intended to liken the evil counsellor not to a paltry earthworm, but to a deceitful reptile."
The ring of words : Tolkien and the Oxford English dictionary, by Peter Gilliver, Jeremy Marshall, Edmund Weiner.