curseing middle earth!
 

Professor Tolkien made the languages of middle Earth incredibly deep and fruitful. But how colourful were they? My question is this, did people in middle earth swear? We get an idea that they "curse" but we assume that that is a form of wizards curse, if you know what I mean. The closest reference to what could be a swear word is found in one of tree beard's speeches where he refers to orks with the words "Brararum" we cannot be certain if this is a swear word or the entish word for ork or something along those lines... I don’t expect that elves swore, being fair folk, but the mortal races (men, dwarrows, hobbits est.) could have... what do you think?

I certainly don't want to encourage people to discuss swearing and foul language on this forum, but it is curious that this very topic came to light the other day when someone sent in a Fan Fiction.

The story involved had one of the hobbits using the word "damned", so I went on a search to see if the word was ever used in the Lord of the Rings, assuming that it was not. Surprisingly, I did find one use of it by Shagrat in the Tower of Cirith Ungol. I returned the story to the author explaining that only the folk of Mordor would stoop to such crudities.

Today the word "damned" is consider pretty light cursing (though it is still cursing and inappropriate for use on the Downs), but in this instance it is a valid topic. I did not search for other words, so there may be other examples, but if anyone continues this discussion, please don't use this topic as an excuse to swear.

Thanks

[ November 17, 2003: Message edited by: The Barrow-Wight ]

I believe it is Fangorn, Treebeard, who says something like there is no curse in Elvish, Dwarvish or Entish (appropriate) for what Saruman has done.

Emotions can be so strong that they cannot be expressed in any type of words. For example, when some people get extremely angry, they start sputtering and stammering, because they are so angry that their brains don't let them speak. I think that is what happened to Treebeard. He had just seen the "corpses" of many of his friends. It could be comparable to walking in a room, and finding the corpses of half the population of the Downs lying dead all over the place. A very shocking and enraging sight, to be sure! That rage galvanized Treebeard and the rest of the Ents, and provided that little bit of recklessness that was required for the March on Isengard.

Also, in "The Passage of the Marshes" Sam does almost the same thing when thinking of Gollum. "Curse him! I wish he was choked!" For some reason I also associate the word "dratted" with Sam, but can't find it anywhere; it might just be my memory confusing it with something else.

My theory would be that the hobbits, and most of the characters, take "Curse" in its old-fashioned sense, meaning not a dirty word but, well, a real curse. Back in the day, it was considered very serious to even *say* a real curse out loud; I knew someone who researched Roman curse tablets (like the kind in the Aquae Sulis museum in Bath) and he absolutely refused to read any of them out loud, no matter that the curses had nothing to do with him personally. One of those just-in-case situations. Thus, when they say "There are no curses" or "Curse him" what they are doing is expressing their wish that something bad would happen to the person without actually taking the irreversible and very dangerous step of reciting a real curse, which again probably has nothing to do with obscene language and more to do with afflicting the cursee with something unpleasant. They just use the word "curse" as a stand-in for the real thing, which they don't necessarily really want.

Treebeard, I'm sure, knows some real curses that could have recited had he wanted to. Sam, eh, I'm not sure about him. I imagine all memory of that sort of thing was gone from the hobbits, and the "Curse him" expression is a relic. Sam probably doesn't know anything stronger than that.

Umm...seem to have diverged a little from the original question. No, I don't think the non-Orcish inhabitants of ME had obscenities in the same way that we do now, not so much from idealism as from the fact that the whole concept that the words that come out of your mouth can have serious effects on the world around you, and that just because you are alone or with a few friends doesn't mean that something else does not see or hear you. Granted, modern-day cursing is a poor stand-in for what it used to be, but it's hard to see ME people taking even that chance. Besides, why would they want to emulate the Orcs?

Small piece of comment on Kalimac's post (one I generally agree with)

'dratted' is used by hobbits in general (at that, referring to Gandalf):

and by Sam to refer to Gollum:

There is also word 'wretched' used by Faramir, but I have a notion that must bear rather descriptive, than insulting, purpose.

In general, apart from hobbits, who are modern in all senses, including their use of obscene language, other people of free will, as I have an inclination to believe, tend to swear in a descriptive way (if they restrain from 'cursing' in a way Kalimac explained above), to stress on those aspects of personality of a person sworn at, that that person him/herself is more or less ashamed of or keenly aware of as of his/her drawback, or, equally, as the his/her dearest cf. Saeros taunting Turin at the feast:

All three principles involved - certainly, in the case, Truin really looked wild being back from hunt and maybe felt it at the feast among all those cooly looking and fashionable elves, and he really feared that, maybe, his mother and sister (his dearest) were in such a state of poverty that may have been if not naked, than clad in kind of inappropriate clothing

Treebeard's 'cursing' is descriptive to the highest extent – he simply lists all that the orks actually are, impression of cursing comes from the emotion he adds onto his words

What I'm trying to drive at is, in short: simply rude and not associated with the pattern of personality sworn at cursing is orks' want, eruhini swear A. descriptively, stressing on aspects which are considered negative, but which are there to be described B. cunningly, making it more hurting, yet, again stressing on aspects which there are. (like, calling ascetic man glutton may hurt less since he knows he is not one, but calling it person who likes getting his dinner in a 'proper way' certainly will hurt, since there is a grape of truth in the insult)

The situation in the Hobbit is not much different, though there are more 'animal' kind of cursing as well: Thorin calls Bilbo 'descendant of rats', though one may speculate the use of the word is inspired by Bilbo's furry feet. Thorin curses in a 'cursing' way too:

BTW, note dwarves' particular addiction to their beards – the swearing starts with calling as a witness Durin's beard, and particular curse lain on Gandalf is the wish for his beard to wither. The other way round will be (words of blessing) 'may your beard grow long'. Elves seem in the know of the fact, since they mock dwarves stressing on their beards (same pattern again – take something mostly dear/the thing person sworn/mocked at is mostly keen of)

And, indeed, same pattern is used when dwarves discuss Bilbo as 'fat fellow' and looking 'like a grocer'.

One another point: 'cursing' cursing occurs when person is enraged, 'cunning' cursing (intended to hurt) in cool mind.

Or, to draw it to an end (for I've already written half a page on a thing I intended to dedicate couple of sentences to), and going back to the first topic, there was no need for good people of ME for their language to be colourful, since it is already deep. To put it straight there is no need for obscenity if there is an inclination to hurt person, for clever wording will suit one better. One dumb (like ork) is limited in his expressing his feelings by certain set of foul words

I can recall '*** ' being used twice in the Lord of the Rings, but never in a crude manner as it would be used today

There was also a line something to the effect of "Sam, you old *** !" said lovingly, not despararingly, by Frodo (I believe in Ithilien). I agree with the initial post in that burarum is probably the closest to a curse uttered in any Tolkien-created tongue of Middle Earth, and with the Barrow Wight in that if anyone were to truly curse in Middle Earth, it would be the orcs and servants of the Enemy.

Surprisingly, no one has mentioned the cursing Mordor orcs on their way to Isengard. It is an orcish curse, or a line of swear-words, but it fits to orcs, doesn't it?
I don't have the translation, but it says:
There is another webpage where they have an intensive look at the Black Speech, but I can't remember what it all meant.
So, of course, the orcs as the bad guys would use curses or swear words.

And who can forget those foul insults 'attercop' and 'tomnoddy'? I think I'll have to wash my mouth out with soap ad water now!

Where is the website which talks in depth about Black Speech? I'd like to give that one a look. Although I fear it'd probably be a bit sanctimonious and offensive with the suggestion/implication that swearing is only for the crude/evil. Obviously it can be, but it can also be an element of humour, or warranted (ever hit your thumb with a hammer?!) I also find it expressive and emphatic and an integral part of language, myself!

Although I see why Tolkien wouldn't have liked it and had it very mildly, it comes back to the generational thing I guess. Back in his day 'damn' and other such words would have been seen as profane, whereas now they're merely blasphemous and inoffensive to the majority of people. If it'd been written today, I bet the Orcs would be effing and blinding the whole way through!
Mind you, I do appreciate he was writing for mediaeval people and in more Ye Olde Worlde Shoppe vernacular, not even to the 1950s standard he would have been used to. Wasn't there some quote from C.S. Lewis along the lines of 'Not another ****ing Elf!' I recall somewhere?

Cazoz, I was fired by curiosity (especially since I've been reading a lot of Lewis lately as well) so went onto Google. According to this article by A.N. Wilson (here's the URL) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main...24/bfanw24.xml
it was actually Hugo Dyson who said it. Regardless, I have to admit it's a funny story.

About the Orc-speech; Tolkien was a little inconsistent about that sentence; in various letters he gave it at least two interpretations (and if I had a copy of the letters with me, I'd cite them - grrrr...) so I'm not sure that even a Black Speech site could make much of it except that it's not meant to be complimentary.

As for swearing in general, Tolkien does not seem to have approved it at all. He refers in his letters as well to "the Orc-minded, to whom only the squalid sounds strong," and much of today's cursing would fall into that category - spoken in the heat of the moment, but still ugly and unimaginative, as are the Orcs.

(About that article, I don't agree with many of its assertions, though it might have been worth discussing in another thread were it not so out-of-date. Just citing my sources on the Lewis/****ing Elf story.

[ November 20, 2003: Message edited by: Kalimac ]

So far I have not found the original site I was referring to, but take a look at this
for a rather interesting-looking Black Speech lesson I found using AltaVista.
I'll go search for more.

Edit: I found it, you'll find the page I meant Here

[ November 20, 2003: Message edited by: Balin999 ]

There is one orcish expletive that stands out in my mind: GARN, which we, as readers, may translate into any number of recognizable expletives in use today.

well, there's a site with elvish expressions, and there are at some insults included. you can download it as .pdf , it's quite useful even if you don't want to insult anyone [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img] go to the "phrase book", you can download the file there if you're interested. Tel'Mithrim - Language Resources

Ah, but that site is dedicated to GC Elvish, not Tolkien's Elvish, so it doesn't really apply.
of course, if you're creative and have a good dictionary, you can come up with several insults/curses in Elvish. But in the end, they're never what I would call swearing; I don't believe that Tolkien would appreciate his language being used in that way.

There are definitely cases of swearing in Middle-Earth, although the characters don't stoop to the lows that some of us do for our frustrated utterances or colourful expletives.

"Hammer and tongs!" by Gimli is the only example I can recall right now, but I know that Sam uses a similar phrase. And something about the way Legolas says "Yrch!" tells me it's not the nicest name the Elves have for their grubby little enemies.