Thread: Name Changes?
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Old 06-04-2015, 06:02 PM   #50
Aiwendil
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Findegil
I am seperated from my books right now, but wasn't it JRR Tolkien himself, who noted at the end of writing that essay that the solution failed because of Cair Andros?

If that would be the case, then the change of Maedros to Maedron seems rather coneted to the other changes of male names making them end on -ron , then to the problem of ros.
Well, we don't know when Tolkien wrote the 'Maedron' note; nor do we know when he wrote, 'Most of this fails' on the manuscript of 'Ros'. It seems to me perfectly plausible that the 'Maedron' note pre-dated the realization that the proposed 'Ros' solution would not work, even if it apparently post-dated 'The Problem of Ros' itself (which Christopher Tolkien presents no actual evidence for, though I grant that he is probably right).

But, as Galin points out, the fact that Tolkien rejected the idea to make ROS- a Beorian stem doesn't necessarily mean that he no longer wanted to get rid of RUS-.

Apart from these considerations, though, I think Galin is right:

Quote:
So far it doesn't look like there is any way to date which is later, Maedron or Maedros, but my point earlier is that choosing Maedros gives you the rest of the scenario, as attested, with Russandol, Ambarussa and Amros and so on.
We don't know which was later. (I don't think the analogy to other '-on' names is conclusive evidence that 'Maedron' is later; after all, we have 'Maedros' as late as 1969 or 1970, while for example 'Tauros' had already become 'Tauron' as early as the early 1950s.) And given that we don't know, I think 'Maedros' is preferable.
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