Tolkien and French...

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Guinevere

In letter #213 Tolkien wrote

That brings to mind a wee bit of ranting that happened in our house at around 7.15 today. There was a group of continental Europeans on TV saying unpleasant things about the British and the French man said something about how our fruit and veg is tasteless and bland...

...funny that. Our apples for one were perfectly lovely until the Golden 'Delicious' came to these shores...

I straight away thought about what Tolkien would have said and it might not have been very different

[Mithalwen]

Master TGWBS would be far more up to date on both French and linguistics but having taken ages to perfect the rolled French R (in a language lab holding down teh tip of my tongue with a pen)..these days I only seem to use it when muttering "morrrrrrrrdorrrrrrrrrrr. Clearly either my French or my Elvish is wrong...

I think he may have been further prejudiced against France by some tragedy that unfolded while he was acting as a tutor on a trip there. I can't quite remember what.

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Mithalwen

Master TGWBS would be far more up to date on both French and linguistics but having taken ages to perfect the rolled French R (in a language lab holding down teh tip of my tongue with a pen)..these days I only seem to use it when muttering "morrrrrrrrdorrrrrrrrrrr. Clearly either my French or my Elvish is wrong...

I think he may have been further prejudiced against France by some tragedy that unfolded while he was acting as a tutor on a trip there. I can't quite remember what.

In Drout's Tolkien Encyclopedia it says that Tolkien went to France as a tutor to two Mexican boys, in 1913. Apparently he liked Paris and Brittany but he found French people 'vulgar' (wasn't this around the time of the fin de siecle and things such as the Folie Bergeres - which might well have been shocking to a provincial English lad!). However there was indeed a tragedy, one of the boys' Aunts got run down and killed in front of Tolkien!