Typos (or: Is it a Freudian slip?)

[Oddwen]

Light Shoes of Snow Walking + 2?

[davem]

Dont know if we've had this one, & I'm not sure it exactly belongs here, but checking the Thornton's Bookshop site I find this curious fact regarding Bilbo's Last Song:

TOLKIEN, J.R.R., & DONALD SWANN Bilbo's Last Song
. Albert House Press, 1992, 4to sized paperback. 4 pages in black wrappers, page 5 is printed on the inside of the rear cover.
¶ Bilbo's Last Song is a poem by J.R.R. Tolkien. It was originally entitled "Bilbo's Last Lay", but this was later changed due to the obvious difficulties over the last word. It was given by Tolkien as a gift to his secretary Joy Hill in 1966. After Tolkien's death in 1973 Hill showed the poem to Donald Swann, who liked the poem so much that he set it to music.
GBP 25.00 [Appr.: EURO 37 US$ 49.38 | JP¥ 5860] Book number: F0193

[Mithalwen]

Oh dear .. he was rather an innocent in some ways *cough* teleporno, shagrat *cough*

[Finduilas]

I'm confused... But maybe that's a good thing.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Mithalwen

Oh dear .. he was rather an innocent in some ways *cough* teleporno, shagrat *cough*

Well, he never gave us Lewdthien and Baren. Or Bear-in.

[Mithalwen]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

Well, he never gave us Lewdthien and Baren. Or Bear-in.

My theory is that he was too involved with the languages to realise the absurdity of some names or dubious meanings . .. I mean I am sorry but Tuna as a place name?

I know too well the pitfalls of teaching beginners german, the words for "go" and "father" are liable to cause mass hysteria among the young - mind you I was in a very serious and grown up choir which also suffered bouts of mass hysteria while rehearsing the Haydn "Stabat Mater"

[davem]

Originally Posted by Mithalwen

My theory is that he was too involved with the languages to realise the absurdity of some names or dubious meanings . .. I mean I am sorry but Tuna as a place name?

Its probably more complicated. Tolkien was (overly??) serious about his language creation, & couldn't simply change a single word or name without changing the structure, grammar, syntax &, er.... stuff of the whole language. Quenya & Sindarin were interconnected, & he couldn't change 'Teleporno' without also changing 'Celeborn', & if he'd changed the names he'd have had to change the meaning of the roots (oo er missus!).

The main reason Tolkien's languages are so convincing is that they aren't just collections of random syllables, but 'actual' languages, with their own rules. CT points out that he wouldn't simply invent a new word for one of his languages, but would have to work out the changes that word would have undergone over, potentially, thousands of years.

I can't help feeling that he would have been fully aware of the 'double meanings' ......

[Mithalwen]

I agree to a point but I doubt that Orcish was so precious that Shagrat couldn't have had a different name. My sister, who sneered at Tolkien for years until she became possibly the world oldest Leggybopper nearly crashed her car when she caught that part of the BBC adaptation on the radio ..... even with the careful stress employed by the owners of Shih Tzu dogs...

When one of the disparaging reviewers of CoH said that Thingol was the silliest name among Tolkien's characters I knew he probably didn't have a good knowledge of the oeuvre...