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#1 |
Curmudgeonly Wordwraith
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: Ensconced in curmudgeonly pursuits
Posts: 2,515
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So a "hobbit" refers to weights and measures, eh? Maybe that's why a group of Hobbits is called a "gross".
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And your little sister's immaculate virginity wings away on the bony shoulders of a young horse named George who stole surreptitiously into her geography revision. |
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#2 | |
Gruesome Spectre
Join Date: Dec 2000
Location: Heaven's doorstep
Posts: 8,039
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Quote:
![]() That is indeed an interesting find. Certainly not something I've ever heard before. You'd think T. would have said so though, if that origin had been a factor.
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Music alone proves the existence of God. Last edited by Inziladun; 03-08-2012 at 10:13 PM. |
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#3 |
A Voice That Gainsayeth
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: In that far land beyond the Sea
Posts: 7,431
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Brilliant, I say!
![]() But I think Inzil has a good point here - would Tolkien not mention the origin of the word somewhere if it had been the case? Then again, it sounds veery unlikely that it would be completely unrelated (especially given his knowledge). Unconscious influence would therefore seem the most logical (like that he had heard the word somewhere, forgot about it and later simply used it, thinking it was "his") - unless the Prof wanted this to be his own private secret, hidden from his readers and others? For that matter, this all makes the sentence "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit" much more dadaistic by origin than it would seem ![]()
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"Should the story say 'he ate bread,' the dramatic producer can only show 'a piece of bread' according to his taste or fancy, but the hearer of the story will think of bread in general and picture it in some form of his own." -On Fairy-Stories |
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#4 | |
Cryptic Aura
Join Date: May 2002
Posts: 6,003
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I’ll sing his roots off. I’ll sing a wind up and blow leaf and branch away. |
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#5 |
A Mere Boggart
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: under the bed
Posts: 4,737
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Tolkien did of course try to explain the etymology of the word hobbit within the Middle-earth context as being hol-bytla or 'hole builder'. But there's always been something of the real world about the word.
The use of the word hobbit or anything similar prior to Tolkien was scanty. And I'd not heard this new use before at all! There's the more well known possibility of it being linked to folklore terms such as hobgoblin/hobby oss/hobbledyhoy. And the word hobbit does occur in the Denham Tracts, which is a mid Victorian (and mad and rambling) collection of folklore, stories, lists, proverbs, etc. Again this is in connection with a British creature of folklore. It's likely that Tolkien did somehow read the word used in both ways and store it in the back of his mind to be brought out again subsconsciously on the day he was bored while marking exam papers and wrote that first line of The Hobbit down. He was later to be credited with creating the word - did he do that or just give it a new meaning? I find it satisfying that a hobbit is also a big measure of oats or barley ![]()
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Gordon's alive!
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#6 |
Princess of Skwerlz
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: where the Sea is eastwards (WtR: 6060 miles)
Posts: 7,500
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I heard Shippey lecture on the origin of "hobbit" and other names as they originated in folklore - Lal is on the same track in her above post. However, the weight/measure source idea is fascinating! And who's to say it wasn't part of the "leafmould" of Tolkien's imagination...
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'Mercy!' cried Gandalf. 'If the giving of information is to be the cure of your inquisitiveness, I shall spend all the rest of my days in answering you. What more do you want to know?' 'The whole history of Middle-earth...' |
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#7 |
Dead Serious
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So barley isn't only available in pints, but in hobbits too?
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I prefer history, true or feigned.
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#8 | |
A Voice That Gainsayeth
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: In that far land beyond the Sea
Posts: 7,431
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"Should the story say 'he ate bread,' the dramatic producer can only show 'a piece of bread' according to his taste or fancy, but the hearer of the story will think of bread in general and picture it in some form of his own." -On Fairy-Stories |
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#9 | |
A Mere Boggart
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: under the bed
Posts: 4,737
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![]() I'm hoping to get over to Flintshire at some point soon (family history fieldtrip) and I might try it on some Welsh folks and see if they still use it. I might not try up in Cerrig-y-drudion though, they're all Sons of Glyndwr up there.
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Gordon's alive!
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#10 | |
Wight
Join Date: Apr 2011
Location: Settling down in Bree for the winter.
Posts: 208
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The hobbit seems to be just the sort of unit of measurement for such a situation! ![]() |
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