[Galin]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

Of course, what may have been in Tolkien's mind as much as anything was simply that published matter couldn't be changed, at least not easily (neither the Hobbit revisions nor the LR second edition were exactly planned), at least as much as reflecting the completely fictional "underlying truth."

Agreed. And as I would put it, when doing this Tolkien is essentially drawing the line between canon (what he himself had published for a readership at large) and everything else. And even when he decides to alter what Frodo said to Gildor (second edition) he is still aware of this line in the sand, and of course why it exists [and in WPP he again tries to come up with an internal explanation for Frodo's "mistake"].

OTOH, T loved to play Patience (Solitaire), and I think part of the "game" to him was working around the constraints of the cards as dealt, even though he had dealt them himself.

Agreed again, as I think the matter of Glorfindel shows -- not only could Tolkien have simply changed the name of the Gondolinic character, but at one point he acts like he needs to stick to the "fact" that Gondolin was mostly populated by Noldorin folk, which itself was the older and seemingly "rejected" idea in any case, given that he had later added plenty of Sindar into the Gondolin mix! Memory glitch in my opinion, but it goes to the point I think. Although even in the late text, if "most" of the Gondolin Elves were Noldorin -- say if Tolkien was actually going back to the old idea here, which I doubt -- most still isn't all in any case.

And maybe it's the back of the same hand, as the matter of Glorfindel shows -- when Tolkien realizes he "cannot" make the Rivendellic Glorfindel one of the Sindar due to what was published.


And agreed for a third time about ros. I'm not sure why even an older Tolkien didn't try the path of loan word here... though I say this with the reservation that: I am no linguist, and he... well, he is JRR Tolkien!

If loan-word does work, perhaps Tolkien didn't think about the matter for very long, for whatever reason.

Edit: actually I think the old idea about Gondolin was that its folk were all Gnomes/Noldorin... ah my pedantry, even I'm not safe from it!