Boldogs, Gothmogs and Sauron's New Clothes

[Formendacil]

Originally Posted by obloquy

Discussion of ealar is in the latter three HoMe volumes, but which texts specifically I cannot recall at the moment. Tomorrow I may be able to provide more specific information.

Saucepan Man is right, though. There is no evidence of other classes of ealar besides Ainur, but there is also no reason to believe Ainur were the only kind of ealar. Why call them Ainur if they're the only kind of ealar anyway? Wouldn't one term or the other suffice?

Hmm... Now I'm REALLY curious about these references, because I both own and have read (multiple times) the last few volumes of the HoME. And I can't remember a thing....

As for the variation of terms...

Different languages, different applications... Think humans vs. people. They're the same things in our world, right? But we have two words. In the same language.

Besides which, one has to remember that Tolkien often replaced terms with new words, then switched back, or forgot, or invented yet another term...

Whatever the case, I'm looking forward to seeing this reference.