Linguistic puns, riddles, and jokes in LotR, etc.

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Originally Posted by The Squatter of Amon Rûdh

Gamling contains the element gamol (old age), so probably means 'old man'.

In modern Swedish and Norwegian gammal means 'old' and the Danes also use a very similar word. Furthermore, gamling is in Swedish a widely used word for 'old person', more often than not used on men, so for us Swedes Gamling is basically an old man whose name is 'old man'.