Shagging rats

[randy_byers]

Okay, I've often wondered about the name Shagrat in Lord of the Rings. Now I've seen it argued that the name Halfast is in fact Tolkien's donnish pun on half-assed, but I have a hard time believing he meant to imply "rat-fucker" by Shagrat. Is there another meaning of "shag" that he was playing on? In the US there's the usage in the phrase "

Comments

[del_c]

I wouldn't overthink it. He has a hill called Tuna, because he wasn't familiar with tuna as a food, and if he thought of it as a fish, he didn't seem to think anyone would make the connection. We, reading it today, can't help giggling. The hill of tuna!

[randy_byers]

I'm willing to believe that he derived Shagrat from his own linguistic ideas about Orcish, independent of the English associations, but I'd be curious to know one way or the other.

[bovil]

"Shag" as slang for "fuck" would have been, at the time, as bad as saying "fuck."

I'm guessing "shag," if it has meaning, is probably supposed to suggest to pipe tobacco.

[randy_byers]

What does "shag" mean when applied to tobacco?

[bovil]

It's a fine-cut tobacco, commonly used for hand-rolled cigarettes. Pipe tobacco is usually a coarser cut.

[scream4noreason]

Well there's shag carpet, so maybe he meant a rat close to the floor?

[randy_byers]

Or a rat with long, thick hair? (Now I'm imagining that Shagrat has a cousin called Plushrat.)

[kalimac]

Remember that, in those days, the English smoked fags.

Tolkien has an elf named Tinfang Warble, and in one text, Celeborn's birthname is Teleporno. I really don't think he was concerned with what words the names sound like in English.

[randy_byers]

I'd forgotten Teleporno! I think it's just that Rat-Fucker is such a great name for an orc that I want it to be true.

[kim_huett]

I assume from your post that you are unaware that shag is a term used to describe various species of crested cormorant. My theory then is that it appealed to the Professor to imagine Shagrat as looking something like the unholy progeny of a cormorant and a rat. And now I think about it is there anything in Tolkien's writings which points to orcs being hairy or smooth skinned? If not I would suggest that Tolkien might have imagined them as much hairier than they were shown in the films.

On the other hand aren't we drifting rather close to the Balrog in fluffy pink bedsock territory?

[randy_byers]

I'm trying to think of who I know that could draw the unholy progeny of a cormorant and a rat. In fluffy pink bedsocks, yes!

[kim_huett]

Clearly Harry Bell would be the obvious choice for such a task given he was a member of the Gannets and gannets are related to cormorants. An for the reckord i doubt very much a balrog would tolerate an orc, even one with a cool name like Shagrat, wearing fluffy pink bedsocks, a priviledge it is said that balrogs guard jealously.

[randy_byers]

Okay, Harry could draw the cormorant part, but who from Rat Fandom would draw the rat part?