I have been thinking about this and puzzling it over for a while...but I am still stuck. Once again, it is over the meaning of 'Legolas'. (Sorry, guys...
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But I was wondering, because in LOTR Galadriel calls him 'Legolas Greenleaf', which could be taken to mean that 'Legolas' means 'Greenleaf' (rather like the Glittering Caves of Aglarond- where Aglarond means Glittering Caves I think).
In Tolkien's letters (211, to Rhona Beare), he says:
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Legolas means 'green-leaves', a woodland name- dialectal form of pure Sindarin laegolas...
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(Tolkien goes on to name the roots of the parts of the name, etc.) It is interesting that he says it means 'green-leaves' plural, not 'green-leaf'.
In the Book of Lost Tales I (under the entry in the Appendix for 'Tari Laisi') it says something completely different:
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The following note is of great interest: 'Note Laigolas= green-leaf, becoming archaic because of final form becoming laib, gave Legolast i.e. keen-sight . But perhaps both were his names, as the Gnomes delighted to give to similar-sounding names of dissimilar meaning, as Laigolas Legolast, Túrin Turambar, etc. Legolas the ordinary form is a confusion of the two.'
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This is a complete contradiction to what he has written elsewhere...
What are your thoughts on this?
Do you have any other examples we could puzzle over?