It's been said before, and I'm sure that most comments here are meant in jest (or at least I hope for otherwise they would cruel and nasty - worthy of the Uruk-Hai or Curufin).
I'd just like to point out that all of us started out as amateurs. We had our annoying questions and misconceptions, corrected by those patient enough around us to deal with our squeakings and by our own further study of Tolkien's work.
I will go further, and risk crucifiction but I am somewhat of a bold lass, and say that at one point Tolkien himself was an amateur. As the stories he set down took shape, so too did his knowledge of his world. Doubt me? Then take a look at the innumerable tales that were written, re-written, tossed aside, radically altered by the great man and now are offered for our reading pleasure thanks mainly to the hard work of his son, Christopher.
You'll see in those tales the evolution of what us "experts" now consider lore.
If people do not begin as amateurs, then people do not begin at all to experience Tolkien's work. It's self flattery, and intolerant, to seek to promote your own knowledge at the expense of another's desire to learn or discuss. The movies, if nothing else, have introduced this epic tale to people who would otherwise never encounter it.
Yes, some questions can be annoying. I myself am likely to trip any who dares *swoon* in my presence (to get them to the floor and out of my way all the sooner). But have a care, lest you yourself prove foolish in how you respond with them. We all started somewhere, some earlier than others and it would be unwise to forget that in ivory towers of knowledge.
Tolkien's world was big enough for 3 Ages, variant races and peoples to live, live, fight and die.... surely it's big enough to share and surely our minds are big enough to comprehend that each will have their own perspective of what Tolkien's work meant. That individual right of interpretation is inalienable, and belongs to all - be you wise lore master or stark raving idiot (and I place myself in the latter category, in case you wonder).
Have a care, is all I ask.
