[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

I believe I recall (from a friend quoting Tolkien's Letters?) that among Tolkien's divergent goals he sought to create with the LotR a truly English epic, along the lines of Beowulf, and felt Mallory wasn't quite up to the job. (I don't know on what basis, though I doubt it was simple dislike.)

The Morte d'Arthur is very French in tone and ideals (not to mention certain characters and incidents). That may have been a factor.

... to which I would gently reply - you need to get out more

To hear a mature opinion or to stop caring about their absence? [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img] I think that if I get out any more regularly to my usual haunts I'll go deaf and lose the articulation in my neck. Perhaps I just need to go to different places, where conversation isn't drowned out by guitars.

Personally I am just old enough to remember a time when nouns were different from verbs, before synergy, foregrounding and so on

I thought that they still were different, but that the ability to speak one's own language had been dropped from the job requirements for most positions.

... and Satellite TV and text messaging IS taking us ever closer to Orwellian Newspeak. But we're the ones that are doing it!

No we're not. If I were involved in the process I shouldn't be complaining about it. I don't object to anything more than the spread of ignorance due to the belief that there's nothing wrong with it. I don't dislike all slang or every development; only those that result from laziness, stupidity or dearth of knowledge, and which result in an unnecessary inelegance of expression.