The strange thing for me when reading Tolkien for the first time was how many of the odd words I was entirely familiar with. I had grandparents who spoke dialect, not mere accent, but a true dialect with its own vocabulary, and Tolkien makes extensive use of dialect in his work. He used the West Midlands dialect, but it's not that far removed from the dialect of where I grew up. I laughed when Tolkien used the word 'Attercop' because knew exactly what that meant, though I tended to pronounce it attercrop. I also knew exactly who a gaffer was and whereabouts yonder might be found.
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Gordon's alive!
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