Well, more that English people use English in a different way, in fact quite lazily and sloppily.
I see the word fundamentally used all the time in serious papers and it means "kinda", "sort of". In much the same way if an English person says "It's a bit cold" they mean "Brrr, I'm freezing and I think I've got Hypothermia" or when Captain Scott left his tent and said "I could be some time" he meant "I'm going out there and I'm going to die".
Of course in the new world we have now, if someone sees the word "fundamental" they have visions of someone in a bomb belt who might just blow you up - they see the word and think it means fundamental in the fanatical sense.
The passage in more detail is below. In it you'll see that Tolkien himself says he has put what he says 'clumsily' and it comes across as 'self-important', so he was aware that he had made himself sound a bit pompous, Cardinal Sin to the Englishman:
Quote:
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The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision. That is why I have not put in, or have cut out, practically all references to anything like ‘religion’, to cults or practices, in the imaginary world. For the religious element is absorbed into the story and the symbolism. However that is very clumsily put and sounds more self-important than I feel. For as a matter of fact, I have consciously planned very little;
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Likewise the Mythology For England quote is often misrepresented. He did not want to
provide us with a mythology, because we've already got one thank you very much, and of all people Tolkien would have known this better than most. No, he wanted to
dedicate his mythology to England - yet again a very different kettle of fish...
EDIT: I'd better say it was Captain Oates who vastly understated his intentions, before me father (or Mithalwen) reads this and beats me about the head with a volume of Scott of the Antarctic or something...