Looking for a word

[bookishfellow]

Wow, it's been a long time. I'm wondering whether I even want to keep up my membership payments here on LJ, considering I last posted back, what, four months ago? My social networking has largely migrated over to a place I can get away with quick, short blurbs rather than longer posts. You know, short, as in less than 150 characters. If you look

Comments

[cramerica]

Hobbitz! I love points, me.
Maybe an acronym coinage: TYSH for "Thanks, You Shouldn't Have"

[rubrick]

I like "TYSH".

[elainetyger]

You would probably get about 30 responses to this on the npl-folk mailing list. You would probably have a 50-50 shot that one of them would be useful.

Coinage? I suggest White Elephant Fetus. Or, I guess, Baby White Elephant, if you want to be nicer about it. Albatross Egg?

(I hate getting most surprise gifts anyway, even if they're useful. I so much prefer reviewing other people's hated gifts for possible trades.)

[rubrick]

Hobbits, sure, but do I get bonus points for knowing that it traces back at least to the common ancestral language of halflings and the Rohirrim (barring the unlikely possibility that it's a loanword)? When hanging out with the king et. al., Merry notes "mathom" as an example of words in the tongue of Rohan that he recognizes.

[bookishfellow]

That's more detailed than I expected from anyone, so sure, points. More points though, if you'd pointed out that Tolkien borrowed it from the Old English maðm, meaning "treasure."

[rubrick]

I didn't think that counted, since "Old English" is just a fictional language Tolkien invented post-hoc to justify his academic career.