Indeed, a great letter, Squatter! It's amazing how much Tolkien's love of language, right down to specifics of word choice and grammatical construction, comes through in his work. Virtually everyone I know who is a great lover of language and wordplay is also a Tolkien fan.
Harking back to the Disney references in earlier posts, here's an amusing anecdote - when Walt Disney heard about an imminent Allied invasion of Axis held territory in WWII (yes, Allied security was that bad), he wrote to Washington with an offer to design a logo for the invaders.
Can you imagine hitting the beaches under a flag designed by old Walt?
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