LotR - Prologue

[Mnemosyne]

I'm actually really curious about this and need to look into when and where this rule sprung up.

The reason I say this is that countless, countless, countless British Victorian novels consistently use "further" for "farther." Which makes me inclined to say it's either an American rule, or one that wasn't created until after that era. In which latter case it might simply be Tolkien deliberately evoking an older feeling, or simply not being aware of the newer rule as he was steeped in older culture (of course, if he knew, I have the feeling he'd deliberately ignore it).

Consequently when I encounter "further" for "farther" in my reading I like to think of it as a construction along the lines of "I should like" for "I would like"--something that is deliberately and delightfully British.

[Formendacil]

Mnemo is perfectly right about Tolkien's attitude towards "farther" and "further"--he makes a direct reference to this in one of his Letters--let me see if I can dig up the reference in the 23 minutes before class...

Aha! Here we are:

Originally Posted by 138, A Letter to Christopher Tolkien: 4 August 1953

The galleys are proving rather a bore! There seem such an endless lot of them ; and they have put me very much out of conceit with pans of the Great Work, which seems, I must confess, in print very long-winded in parts. But the printing is very good, as it ought to be from an almost faultless copy; except that the impertinent compositors have taken it upon themselves to correct, as they suppose, my spelling and grammar: altering throughout dwarves to dwarfs; elvish to elfish; further to farther; and worst of all, elven – to elfin. I let off my irritation in a snorter to A. and U. which produced a grovel.

--emphasis Tolkien's own

Originally Posted by 148, A Letter to Katherine Farrer: 7 August 1954

I am afraid there are still a number of 'misprints' in Vol. I! Including the one on p. 166. But nasturtians is deliberate, and represents a final triumph over the high-handed printers. Jarrold's appear to have a highly educated pedant as a chief proof-reader, and they started correcting my English without reference to me: elfin for elven; farther to further; try to say for try and say and so on. I was put to the trouble of proving to him his own ignorance, as well as rebuking his impertinence.

Again, italics are from The Letters, not me.

Originally Posted by 236, A Letter to Rayner Unwin: 30 December 1961

I suppose I should be grateful that Cox and Wyman have not inflicted the change from elven to elfin and further to farther on me which Jarrolds attempted, but Jarrolds were at least dealing with a MS. that had a good many casual errors in it.

Those are all the references I found in The Letters, but none of them match my mental memory of how Tolkien put it, but as my memory is hardly infallible and these quotes suffice, it is probably sufficient to post these and note that Tolkien was well aware that the 'proper' usage would be farther, and decided he did not wish to use it.

[Mugwump]

Originally Posted by Mnemosyne

The reason I say this is that countless, countless, countless British Victorian novels consistently use "further" for "farther." Which makes me inclined to say it's either an American rule, or one that wasn't created until after that era.

Bingo--I think you've got it! Using further in that sense must've been merely standard idiomatic British English of Tolkien's day, just as of free will meant of [his/her/my/our/your/their] own free will.

[Bêthberry]

All grammars leak, although not all grammarians and teachers like to admit the fact. So maybe it's the grammarians and teachers who leak?

It is really quite interesting to read what that bible of clear thinking and precise word choice has to say: Fowler's Modern English Usage. It would appear that usage has been muddled and only relatively latterly did the prognosticators declare a preference and even then they got the usage wrong, as applying a difference to which none of the practitioners of the language adhered.

Originally Posted by farther, further, Modern English Usage

The history of the two words appear to be that further is a comparative of fore and should, if it were to be held to its etymology, means more advanced, and that farther is a newer variant of further, no more connected with far thant further is, but affected in its form by the fact that further , having come to be used instead of the obsolete comparative of far (farrer), seemed to need a respelling that should assimilate it to far. This is intended as a popular but roughtly correct summary of the OED's etymological account. As to the modern use of the two forms, the OED says: 'In standard English the form farther is usually preferred where the word is intended to be the comparative of far, while further is used where the notion of far is altogether absent; there is a large intermediate class of instances in which the choice between the two forms is arbitrary.'

This seems to be too strong a statement [one often loves Fowler for his iconoclasm]: a statement of what might be a useful differentiation rather than of one actually developed or even developing. The fact is surely that hardly anyone uses the two words for different ocasions; most people prefer one or the other for all purposes, and the preference of the majority is for further. [my bolding] Perhaps the most that should be said is that farther is not common except where distance is in question, and that further has gained a virual monopoly of the sense of moreover, both alone and in the compound furthermore. The three pairs of quotations following are selected for comparison from the OED stores.

1. Comparative of far: If you can bear your load no farther,say so. --H. Martineau. It was not thought safe for the ships to proceed further in the darkness. --Macaulay.

2. No notion of far: Down he sat without farther bidding. --Dickens. I now proceed to some further instances. --De Morgan.

3. Intermediate: Punishment cannot act any farther than in as far as the idea of it is present in the mind. --Bentham. Men who pretend to believe no further than they can see. Berkeley.

On the whole, though differentiations are good in themselves, it is less likely that one will be established for farther and further than that the latter will become universal. In the verb, further has the field virtually to itself.

The first edition of Fowler was 1926; second in 1965.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Mugwump

Using further in that sense must've been merely standard idiomatic British English of Tolkien's day,]

It still is - both meself & Lal say 'further' (she's Lancastrian & I'm from Yorkshire, so I reckon its in common usage across the north of England). Mind you, here in 'God's Own County', we still commonly say 'thee', 'thine' & 'thou' (though we pronounce it 'tha')!

[Rumil]

I'm with Tollers on this one !

this makes me wonder if my subconcious grammar usage has been influenced by LoTR - probably.

So for me-


1. Comparative of far: If you can bear your load no farther,say so. --H. Martineau. It was not thought safe for the ships to proceed further in the darkness. --Macaulay.

Either would do, 'farther' sounds more antique (perhaps from Bible usage?)


2. No notion of far: Down he sat without farther bidding. --Dickens. I now proceed to some further instances. --De Morgan.

Definitely 'further' - Who the Dickens would use 'farther' here?


3. Intermediate: Punishment cannot act any farther than in as far as the idea of it is present in the mind. --Bentham. Men who pretend to believe no further than they can see. Berkeley.

Still 'further', Bentham's sentence seems out of true for me.

[Faramir Jones]

I'm surprised that I saw nothing by you here, Legate and Thinlómien; because I feel the Prologue to be important.

It's important as a bridge between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings proper, intended to accustom the reader of the first book to the different atmosphere of the latter.

It's divided into 5 parts. The first is about hobbits in general, their origins and their history, including how they live (with its good and bad points) at the time of both stories.

The second is about the bizzare (to others) custom of the hobbits, of putting a herb into pipes and smoking it, The herb, called pipe-weed, is given enough of a description for the reader to identify it as tobacco. The reason why it's given such early prominence is that the reader will later see it cleverly used throughout the story as a symbol of hobbit identity, as something the four important hobbits miss when they don't have it, and enjoy when they do. I found this interesting; because although The Hobbit revealed that Bilbo, Gandalf and the 13 dwarves smoked pipes, no indication was given that this was originally a hobbit invention.

The third deals with the nearest the 'Shire' (the name the reader now finds out the hobbits call their country) has to 'government', again reinforcing what was told in the first part.

The fourth is an overview of what went on in The Hobbit, putting it into a wider context, suggesting that Bilbo getting the ring was no accident, and that his initial lying to Gandalf about how he did is a hint of something more serious.

The fifth is about the 'book', the first volume from which The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings were 'translated' by Tolkien: The Red Book of Westmarch. There is a nice background to what it is, its history, and a heightened awareness of the hobbits of the 'Shire' being part of a far wider history, in which they, formerly unimportant, played a significant part.

There are also a lot of unfamiliar names to go along with the few familiar ones. By the end of the story the reader will understand what it's all about, but not till then.

This does not mean that the reader needs to read the Prologue; but there's a lot of helpful information to prepare him or her for the following story.

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Faramir Jones

It's divided into 5 parts. The first is about hobbits in general, their origins and their history, including how they live (with its good and bad points) at the time of both stories.

One thing that's always stood out to me is the classification of Hobbits into Harfoots, Stoors, and Fallohides.
Why do Hobbits, being fundamentally Men, have characteristics of and respective affinity for the other 'Speaking Peoples' as well? Did that contribute to their innate peaceable nature and ability to live unobtrusively amid ME's other denizens?

[Formendacil]

After far too long (a couple years, I think), I'm rereading The Lord of the Rings (though, of course, having read it so much in my formative years, it's not as if I've forgotten it!) and having both the time and the inclination to share what stuck in my mind, where better to come than this trusty old thread!

I had two main thoughts:



- Mathoms. A useful word--an even more useful concept. (I might actually start a thread about this from a more general perspective, but let's at least document the origin of this thought here). I definitely have some ramblings in mind about how Tolkien shaped the architecture of my thoughts. This is one of those cases where fiction provides a word to fill a hole. A lot of the time we borrow words from other languages--think of German words like schadenfreude or weltanshauung that we've borrowed because it gives us a word that our language didn't posses before? It's also fascinating to me when fiction fills a void in the same way. Granted, "mathom" may not be part of an ordinary person's lexicon... but is "weltanshauung?"



- The Elf-towers of the Far Downs. These kind of fascinate me because they loom on the borders of Hobbit knowledge, but with our broader knowledge of Middle-earth they're still kind of mysterious. I believe we know (though I can't cite where off the top of my head--I suspect Unfinished Tales) that the central, farthest-west Tower was built to house the palantír for Elendil--and that Elendil waited here for the hosts of Gil-galad to join him during the Last Alliance.

But why three towers? Artistically (which could be both an in-universe and a literary reason), it does seem better, but what is the function? As a border, the Far Downs only seem to have ever likely needed fortifying with watch-towers--especially by the Elves, who are the explicit builders--during the Second Age. But if the westernmost tower was built for Elendil, were these towers for the defence of Lindon at all? Perhaps the two other towers are actually far older than the palantír's tower, dating back Sauron's war with Eregion or its aftermath. In any event, fun to speculate over.