Cellar Door

[Rimbaud]

As the Sylvia to my Ted is actually an Emily, I am very much familiar with the difficulties in certain trans-Atlantic translations. Neither of us are entirely sure how we respectively used to pronounce the word 'garage'.

I am also a 'devotee' of the afore-mentioned French 'j' sound for instance as occasioned by the vocalisation of 'occasionally'; this sound in phonetics is traditionally denoted by 'zh'.

And yes, I am rather smug about my trans-atlantic-poet description of my lady's terrible American affliction.

On a more Tolkien related note, I agree with the above comment questioning why, as JRRT so clearly loved the soft 'ce' of the word 'cellar', he hardened the names of such luminaries as Celeborn. To give it a more 'authentic' Celtic feel, one imagines, but I cannot help but feel slight regret whenever I hear Celeborn said this way; I too am more in favour of the softer sound. Ah well. You can't hear me saying it!

[Evisse the Blue]

Interesting, the Professor's fascination to 'cellar door'; the first time I hear of this, so thanks a lot, Lalaith for bringing it up! If you still wonder what could Tolkien have found so beautiful about it, try saying it aloud a few times, over and over, until it's devoid of meaning and you register only it 'melody'.

On the pronunciation of 'Celeborn': I must agree with those of you that say pronouncing it with a hard 'k' is not that pleasant to the ear. In my language, the combination of letters 'ce' is pronounced like the 'che' in 'chestnut', so I find myself always pronouncing it that way.

[Lalaith]

this is a rather nice article

[VanimaEdhel]

I am proud to be able to say that I liked Donnie Darko before it became the "in" Emo movie. I won't get into an anti-Emo rant here, however. Save that for another Forum.

I agree that "cellar door", with almost any English-speaking accent, sounds very beautiful if you take away the meaning.

On a more Tolkien related note, I agree with the above comment questioning why, as JRRT so clearly loved the soft 'ce' of the word 'cellar', he hardened the names of such luminaries as Celeborn. To give it a more 'authentic' Celtic feel, one imagines, but I cannot help but feel slight regret whenever I hear Celeborn said this way; I too am more in favour of the softer sound. Ah well. You can't hear me saying it!

I tend to disagree. Though I do love the soft "ce", myself, I actually prefer the harder sound in Celeborn. For some reason, giving it the softer "ce" makes it sound a bit too much like the word "celibate" or something close to it in my opinion. In names such as Selena (Spanish pronunciation), I think it sounds very beautiful, however.

Thank you so much for the link, Lalaith.

Tolkien had a love for beautiful language. Notice how little he developed the Black Speech for example. When one reads about the language on Ardalambion, it says,

Tolkien himself did not like the Black Speech at all. One admirer sent him a steel drinking goblet, but to his disappointment he discovered that it was "engraved with the terrible words seen on the Ring. I of course have never drunk from it, but use it for tobacco ash" (Letters:422). He evidently shared the opinion of Elves and Men back in the Third Age, who certainly did not think any better of the Black Speech than they did of the other tongues used by Orcs: "It was so full of harsh and hideous sounds and vile words that other mouths found it difficult to compass, and few indeed were willing to make the attempt" (PM:35).

Eek...I have to go, sadly.

[Isowen]

I've never seen it. It sounds cool though, I like the Tolkien input there. When I first saw the title of the thread, I thought it was about the hobbit (barrels out of bond) as it is how they escape the elvenking's palace. But this is a very interesting topic and I like to think that Tolkien is known to more people than just us lotr fans!

[InklingElf]

Originally Posted by VanimaEdhel

I am proud to be able to say that I liked Donnie Darko before it became the "in" Emo movie. I won't get into an anti-Emo rant here, however.

I have a tendancy to get into those anti-emo rants too hehehe--suffice it to say despite Donnie's recent classification in the 'EMO' genre it hasn't lost its cult-like touch and the dignity of a good movie.

And yes I read the article Lalaith I like this portion:

In his essay "English and Welsh", he put forward the theory that words have a beauty that is often quite separate from their meaning. He wrote: "Most English-speaking people ... will admit that Cellar Door is ‘beautiful’, especially if dissociated from its sense and from its spelling". The English language is full of ‘Cellar Doors’, words that are beautiful, strange, sensuous or simply fun to roll off the tongue.

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

As I lay half in a nightmarish daze yesterday morning on a futon, I finally woke up to the equally nightmarish "Frank". I then proceeded to wake up entirely as the movie rewound to the beginning, and then watched Donnie Darko for the first (and probably not last) time. I had thought, during the discussion of "Cellar Door" on this thread, that the reference would be barely perceptable, and that I would have to search to find it. I was obviously wrong, and was, while watching it, able to pass on the true identity of the "famous linguist" to those I was watching it with.

Watching Donnie Darko, however, I was struck with the thought "How many other Tolkien references are out there that I've completely missed?". Makes you wonder, does it not?

Fea