Puns by Tolkien

[Bêthberry]

I wouldn't have thought Celeborn capable of puns, but ...

'Boromir, and any that go with him seeking Minas Tirith, will do well to leave the Great River above Rauros and cross the Entwash before it finds the marshes. Yet they should not go too far up that stream, nor risk becoming entangled in the Forest of Fangorn.'

(Book 2, chapter 8, "Farewell to Lorien")

[Bêthberry]

How could we have overlooked this one?

Tolkien did not invent the name Inklings but he described it as a pun, Letter 298, p. 388 in Carpenter's Letters.

I called the name a ‘jest’, because it was a pleasantly ingenious pun in its way, suggesting people with vague or half-formed intimations and ideas plus those who dabble in ink.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Not a pun, but Burrahobbit is certainly wordplay. As is eleventy-first.

[Morthoron]

Of course, Bilbo throwing shade on his relations ranks up there with puntastic sarcasm, if we can take the definition of "pun" to include the different possible meanings of a word or phrase (and perhaps the intention of said word or phrase):

For ADELARD TOOK, for HIS VERY OWN, from Bilbo; on an umbrella. Adelard had carried off many unlabelled ones.

For DORA BAGGINS in memory of a LONG correspondence, with love from Bilbo; on a large waste-paper basket. Dora was Drogo's sister and eldest surviving female relative of Bilbo and Frodo; she was ninety-nine, and had written reams of good advice for more than half a century.

For MILO BURROWS, hoping it will be useful, from B.B.; on a gold pen and ink-bottle. Milo never answered letters.

For ANGELICA'S use, from Uncle Bilbo; on a round convex mirror. She was a young Baggins, and too obviously considered her face shapely.

For the collection of HUGO BRACEGIRDLE, from a contributor; on an (empty) book-case. Hugo was a great borrower of books, and worse than usual at returning them.

For LOBELIA SACKVILLE-BAGGINS, as a PRESENT; on a case of silver spoons. Bilbo believed that she had aquired a good many of his spoons, while he was away on his former journey. Lobelia knew that quite well. When she arrived later in the day, she took the point at once, but she also took the spoons.

[Bêthberry]

Not punning but some linguistic jousting between Boromir and Aragorn, from the chapter "A Journey in the Dark".

Originally Posted by Boromir

'Then let us start as soon as it is light tomorrow, if we can,' said Boromir. 'The wolf that one hears is worse than the orc that one fears.'

Originally Posted by Aragorn

'True!' said Aragorn, loosening his sword in its sheath. 'But where the warg howls, there also the orc prowls.'

[Rune Son of Bjarne]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

Not punning but some linguistic jousting between Boromir and Aragorn, from the chapter "A Journey in the Dark".

This passage always seemed a bit cheery to me, considering they are in mortal danger.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Rune Son of Bjarne

This passage always seemed a bit cheery to me, considering they are in mortal danger.

I agree. It appears to come out of nowhere, the seeming camaraderie of two in competition to make the most unlikely thing to say.

I think Tom Shippey put his finger on what Tolkien might be doing here when he told the story of how his fellow team mates competed to make the greatest joke about his broken tibia and fibula after an accident in a rugby game. (One offered a very low price for his ticket to the evening dance. The other berated him for not passing the ball as he went down.) A school boy attempt to make him laugh in the moment of pain. (These were all boys at Tolkien's King Edward School and it struck me very much as schoolboy humour, which misses the modern programming not to laugh at other's or even one's own pain.) (This is in Shippey's Forward to Laughter in Middle-earth,p. 4. He is not discussing this passage, but the orcs' humour.)

To require this kind of external context seems to me to reflect a problem with the original text. I suppose there are several examples of competing egos between Boromir and Aragorn, particularly with their historical roles of Steward heir apparent and king, but I think Tolkien could have done a better job making this a more fitting competition between the two.