Annoying experts

[Mad Baggins]

Yeah...whenever someone referred to the Ents as trees, I screamed, "ENTS!" in their ear. That probably became annoying, but I don't like it when I'm corrected by experts. Especially constantly. It's really icky.

[Knight of Gondor]

You guys have this all wrong. We're supposed to complain about others that annoy us, not how we ourselves can be annoying!

Well, it would go like this...
I would say the name of a character, and then he would say "who?” and then I would say the name of the character again, and then he would say, "Oh, you were talking about...".

Then I'm not as bad as that, Gorwingel. I just quietly repeat the name to the person in its correct form, then shrug and grin to show that it's not a big deal, I'm just being picky about it. Usually they just laugh and go "whatEVER".

Yeah, this is closer to me, too. Except around my parents, lest I find myself on a time limit on the computer for over-obsessedness (they've done it to my brother before, not for LotR).

That's nothing. I got banned by my parents from Barrow-Downs...the DAY before TTT released in theaters! We drove them nuts with it, but we eventually let it get hold of them too.

Sorry, Gil-Galad, did you deserve some credit for that? Ha ha, sorry...

[Lyta_Underhill]

Don't you just hate those people who back up their assertions with quotes from Tolkien's Letters and thereby kill a thread? The quotes from Letters can be like the big Monty Python foot sometimes!
For some reason, for a while, I noticed that my own posts would kill a thread, especially if it was about Pippin. I think I hit the Twilight Zone with regards to Pippin sometimes and derail threads that way. I'm sure some of my ramblings on how Pippin was the Hand of Providence and it was fated that the wrong thing would turn out right if only Pippin had a hand in it irritated someone out there! Or how about the loosely conglomerated group of Frodophiles, of which I am one...they all seem to gather in certain threads and go on about how admirable Frodo is and jump on anyone who may say "nay!" (I am poking fun at myself yet again...)

Cheers!
Lyta
(finally posting again after a loooooooong silence...well, for me anyway!)

[HerenIstarion]

Folks, you know you do sound ever complaining . Some people annoy you as they are amateurs, the rest are hated for being experts. What are you after, than? The standard, the image of ideal Tolkien fan I crave for! Probably that is congruent with the standard of average citizen? Middle aged, well-of, happily married and well employed, parent of two blondish blue-eyed infants and, of course, psychologically balanced?

Don't you just hate those people who back up their assertions with quotes from Tolkien's Letters and thereby kill a thread?

Provided that letters confirm the assertion, can't see what goes wrong there

Suppose the thread deals with Numenor, and some say its image must have been based on Samurai Japan, and some nay, it was Ancient Rome Tolkien had in mind, and than yours truly turns up, and gives an assertion as of its image being based on Ancient Egypt, and backs himself up with the following:

Letter 211 To Rhona Beare

The Númenóreans of Gondor were proud, peculiar, and archaic, and I think are best pictured in (say) Egyptian terms. In many ways they resembled 'Egyptians' – the love of, and power to construct, the gigantic and massive. And in their great interest in ancestry and in tombs. (But not of course in 'theology' : in which respect they were Hebraic and even more puritan – but this would take long to set out: to explain indeed why there is practically no oven 'religion', or rather religious acts or places or ceremonies among the 'good' or anti-Sauron peoples in The Lord of the Rings.)

Thread is, naturally, dead, for there is nothing more to speculate about, but, well, is the end of discussion mere discussion, or possible discovery of some new information/truth?

cheers

[Lyta_Underhill]

Thread is, naturally, dead, for there is nothing more to speculate about, but, well, is the end of discussion mere discussion, or possible discovery of some new information/truth?

Ah, HI, ever the embodiment of the little joke I was having! Can we say "Canonicity?" I do enjoy those quotes from Letters actually, but, as you say, there are truths to be uncovered and the 'letter' itself leaves off at Tolkien's mechanism of subcreation rather than the effect on the reader.

I hope I didn't sound like I was complaining!
Cheers!
Lyta

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

"Experts are never annoying, only interesting." - Letter #600.

"Taking advantage of one's knowledge to confuse people with spurious quotations is a bit of a giggle." - Confucius

"I agree with what Confucius just said." - Karl Marx

"Everyone's a critic" - Anonymous critic.

[HerenIstarion]

Should I add that threads come an go, but Canonicity/Truth issue lives on...?

edit:

Whatever the cross-posting issue, I do not have much to add really, but wishing to add my tuppence (sp?) worth, I would like to let all of you know that I agree with Letter 600 mentioned above, lol

[VanimaEdhel]

Hmmm...I'm guilty of every variety of correcting people's pronuncations. Even though I'm by no means as much of an expert as, say...well, 99.95% of the experts on the Forum...I always correct how people say things - especially when they try to pronounce the Elvish names for things. Although my friends are just like me, so we can be annoying in pretentious as a unit at least.

But you know another type of annoying Tolkien pseudo-mini-not really-expert I am? The one that randomly pulls out The Sil references to go into everyday life without explaining them to the other people who haven't read The Silmarillion. Do any of you find yourself doing that? I try to stop, but when they pop into my head, I just blurt them out. Most of my friends know what I'm talking about, but the others just think I'm weird. I think they already thought that, actually, but I just enhanced it. Then there was the day where I tried to explain what Vala and Maia were in History class when my History teacher began to whine about the movies...I kind of launched into a summarized Valaquenta.