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Nixon4Prez t1_ja23j2z wrote

JRR Tolkien was primarily interested in linguistics - what a lot of people don't realize is that the entire world of the Lord of the Rings and the entire Tolkien canon originated as a setting for his invented languages. Elvish came first, the whole Tolkienverse came about as a setting for it.

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blakerabbit t1_ja23zhn wrote

Always assumed it was from words meaning “whale horse”, but I’ve never looked up the etymology…

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ReplyFriendly8071 t1_ja278if wrote

It's funny that this used to be a job a person could have. These days all the words are already in the dictionary, even the ones towards the end of the alphabet.

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jostler57 t1_ja2h3tf wrote

Saying this title outloud pleases me.

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Blackbirds_Garden t1_ja2obpc wrote

I'm not out-and-out saying "you're wrong" (because I know it's ... correct) but it highlights the problem I have with books and "edition number" type publications. First edition OED existed nearly a decade before Tolkien was born and lasted until 15 years after his death. Second edition is to be superseded in ~2037.

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tom_the_red t1_ja2orde wrote

Having Wargs in the Hobbit suddenly makes more sense - the word is an old one, but he revived it in this particular spelling. I wonder if he felt a secret smugness in knowing he was putting something into his slice of the dictionary.

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KingRaffles t1_ja339r3 wrote

Baldrick : I'm quite pleased with "dog." Blackadder : Yes, and your definition of "dog" is? Baldrick : "Not a cat."

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chop1125 t1_ja378z9 wrote

He also had a transcript rejected because the plural of dwarf was dwarfs, and not dwarves, according to the oxford English dictionary. He told the editor that he wrote the oxford English dictionary, and to quit correcting him.

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VeGr-FXVG t1_ja3ixzy wrote

Replying to user2542 (#2,022,453)

'Sebastian, why do you seem so morose?'

'Because of "Rizz", Jeffrey! From which vestibule of hades did this monstrosity materialise? Mother was right, I should've been a lapidiarist.'

'I thought you never took a shining took that?'

'Get out, Jeffrey'.

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pf30146788e t1_ja3l7hj wrote

People seem to forget his day job was as a philologist.

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thedefinitionofidiot t1_ja3ugkf wrote

Replying to FartingBob (#2,023,180)

Ultimately, we can reconstruct that there was a Proto-Indo-European root *h₁es- that meant something like "to be" (also the root of the English word was) that came into Greek as eteos and its closely related or derived cousin etumos.

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HouseAtomic t1_ja3wvmu wrote

Replying to Nixon4Prez (#2,017,756)

The Neal Stephenson book Reamde centers around a MMOG that was invented then had an entire 100% realistic planetary geology created. The players having realistic mining, water flows & mountain ranges were important to the development team.

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Reinventing_Wheels t1_ja3ye7y wrote

My take on this is to be surprised that the OED isn't nearly as old of a publication as I assumed. I was thinking it was several hundreds of years old, at least, given how long Oxford University has been around.

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Limp_Distribution t1_ja4z7k2 wrote

An amazing wordsmith who I thank profusely for providing access to such an incredible world called Middle Earth.

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AimHere t1_ja50l5q wrote

Tolkien also worked on a bible translation, the Jerusalem Bible of 1970 or so, where he translated the book of Jonah, and Salvador frikking Dali did the illustrations!

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drygnfyre t1_ja594x2 wrote

Replying to chop1125 (#2,024,374)

The other thing to note is the entire concept of language is that it evolves over times. Words like "doghouse" and the name "Vanessa" were outright invented by Shakespeare. They just became words and were accepted. Thus, while Tolkein is correct, at the same time, if enough people wrote and accepted "dwarves," it's also valid.

A good example would be "virus." Both "viruses" and "virii" are accepted as words, depending largely on the context.

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LOHare t1_ja6c8i0 wrote

Replying to Nixon4Prez (#2,017,756)

Even the creation story of Tolkienverse is testament to that. Arda was sung into existence. Music was first, then song, and the song was given shape as the physical universe.

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FrankDrakman t1_ja6g0fe wrote

I worked for a place that had the entire 26 volumes of the OED. There was nothing like sitting down at lunch, opening a volume at random, and just getting lost.

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