I ask again, what is the purpose of school resource officers other than to instill discomfort in the student body? Other than to brutalize and single out select “problem” students at random, often marginalized ones? There was not one single time during my academic career when I was glad there was a school resource officer in the school. It was a teacher who disarmed a student at my school. Every time there was a violent brawl, it was a teacher who inserted themselves in the middle to stop it. It is teachers who put themselves in front of gunmen to protect their students while the coward cop sticks his thumb in his ass in the parking lot.
Things the Fellowship has argued about
- What name to call Aragorn
- What name to call Gandalf
- What to call their meals. Boromir thinks, if it is eaten at dinnertime, regardless of whether it is the first meal of the day or not, then it is dinner. Sam thinks it isn't proper to call the first meal of the day dinner. Aragorn suggests they combine the two words but now everyone is fighting over whether it should be called breakfast-dinnner or dinner-breakfast. The fight nearly becomes physical
- Whether Legolas or Gimli is winning their daily argument with eachother
- If hobbits are regular sized and everyone else is really big, or if everyone else is regular sized and hobbits are small
- The same as above except with horses and ponies
- If Gimli's beard is real or not. This one started as a joke between Merry and Pippin but then Legolas saw how mad it made Gimli and so continues to bring it up
- Inter-hobbit fighting about whether it is called pot-ae-toes, pot-ah-toes, or taters
- "Can Legolas really talk to trees, or is he just fucking with us?" Aragorn and Gandalf refuse to weigh in on this
- Whether the Ent-draught caused Merry and Pippin to grow or if they just did that on their own. This fight is Pippin vs. Everyone Else
- Whether the non-hobbits of the Fellowship would be Tooks, Brandybucks, or Bagginses. This argument is unintelligible to most of them, although Gandalf has the knowledge to be offended when Pippin suggests he would be a Took.
- "What would happen if someone ate the ring?"
- Fights over whether the elves, the dwarves, or the hobbits tell the story of the reclaiming of Erebor most accurately. Even though Gandalf was there, he just shrugs when anyone asks him
- Which variety of pipeweed is the best kind. Merry threatened Gimli to a duel over this one
- Who gets next watch
reposting a favorite reddit moment of mine since god knows if ill ever see it again
I’m high as shit and I’m just carrying around this lantern like a fucking guardsman
One of the ballsiest things Tolkien ever did was write 473k words about some hobbits called frodo, sam, merry, and pippin and then write in the appendices that their names are actually maura, ban, kali, and razal.
This just in: Eowyn and Eomer’s names actually start with the letter “L.” [source for other nerds]
No, they have Westron names and English names.
What you’ve got to understand is that everything Tolkien wrote was him pretending to merely translate ancient documents. He was writing as if the Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings were actually been written by Bilbo, Frodo, and Sam (or Bilba, Maura, and Ban) and he was just some random contemporary academic translating it all into English for us.
There are many languages in his books, but generally speaking, everything written in English in the books is a translation of the language “Westron.” Therefore any names that come from Westron, he translated. Names coming from other languages, like Sindarin, he left as they were. Why? IDK. Maybe because the stories are from a hobbit perspective and hobbits speak Westron, so he wanted the Westron parts to sound familiar and the other languages/names to remain foreign?
“But Mirkwoodest!” you cry, “The word ‘hobbit’ isn’t an English word! And the names Bilbo Baggins, Frodo Baggins, Samwise Gamgee, Peregrin Took, and Meriadoc Brandybuck” all sounds super weird and not like English at all!”
Psych! They are in English! (Or Old English, German, or Norse.) Once again you underestimate what a nerd Tolkien was. Let me break it down:
In Westron, hobbits are actually called “kuduk,” which means “hole-dweller,” so for an English translation, Tolkien called them “hobbits” which is a modernization of the Old English word “holbytla” which comes from “Hol” (hole) and “Bytla”(builder).
“Maura” is a Westron name which means “Wise.” Weirdly enough, “Frodo” is an actual Proto-Germanic name that actual people used to have and it means the same thing.
“Banazîr” is Westron for “half-wise, or simple.” In Proto Germanic, the prefix “Sam” means half, and wise is obviously a word we still use.
“Razanur” means “Traveler” or “Stranger” which is also the meaning of the word “Peregrin(e)” This one is a twofer because “Razar” means “a small red apple” and in English so does “Pippin.”
“Kalimac” apparently is a meaningless name in Westron, but the shortened form “Kali” means “happy,” so Jirt decided his nickname would be “Merry” and chose the really obscure ancient Celtic name “Meriodoc” to match.
Jirt chose to leave “Bilba” almost exactly the same in English, but he changed the ending to an “O” because in Westron names ending in “a” are masculine.
I’m not going to go on and talk about the last names but those all have special meanings too (except Tûk, which is too iconic to change more than the spelling of, apparently).
The Rohirrim were also Westron speakers first and foremost, so their names are also “translations” into Old English and Proto-Germanic words, i.e. “Eowyn” is a combination of “Eoh” (horse) and “Wynn” (joy/bliss).
“Rohirrim/Rohan” are Sindarin words, but in the books, they call themselves the “Éothéod” which is an Old English/Norse combo that means “horse people.” Tolkien tells us in the “Peoples of Middle Earth” that the actual Westron for “Éothéod” is Lohtûr, which means that Eowyn and Eomer’s names, which come from the same root word, must also start with the letter L.
The names of all the elves, dwarves, Dunedain, and men from Gondor are not English translations, since they come from root words other than Westron.
The takeaway from this is that when a guy whose first real job was researching the history and etymology of words of Germanic origin beginning with the letter “W” writes a book, you can expect this kind of tomfoolery.
Notes: Sorry I said “Razal” instead of “Razar” in my original post I’m a fraud.
Further Reading:
I’m having a stroke
perfectionistdia
Tolkien was the most extra son of a bitch my goodness
This is why C.S. Lewis wanted to punch Tolkien in the face sometimes.
dashas-hideous-laughter
In the great hierarchy of nerds, Tolkien remains at the very top.
No one can top Tolkien.
pretend? pretend to translate????
Fuckin Conlangs Georg
