orcs and goblins- what's the difference???

[Tuor of Gondolin]

For a Wikipedia slant on this subject try:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orc_(Middle-earth)#Azog

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Orcs, goblins, and Uruk-hai

In The Hobbit, Tolkien used the word "goblins" for Orcs, because he had not yet identified the world of The Hobbit with Middle-earth (which predated The Hobbit by several decades, in early writings which would later become The Silmarillion). Fortunately Tolkien did include some references to his mythology in the Hobbit, which later allowed him to identify the lands of the Hobbit with his Middle-earth. The term "Orc" does occur, but only in an instance where Gandalf is trying to scare Bilbo by mentioning creatures of the wilderness and in the name of Thorin's sword, 'Orc-rist' ('goblin-cleaver').

In The Lord of the Rings, "Orc" is used predominantly, and "goblin" mostly in the Hobbits' speech.

As an example, a passage where the terms are used interchangeably goes:


"There were four goblin-soldiers of greater stature, swart, slant-eyed, with thick legs and large hands. They were armed with short broad-bladed swords, not with the curved scimitars usual with Orcs: and they had bows of yew, in length and shape like the bows of Men."
"The Departure of Boromir", from The Two Towers. The goblins described are Saruman's Uruk-hai.


This change can be seen either as a part of the shift towards the use of Elvish words that occurred during the period between the writing of The Hobbit and the writing of The Lord of the Rings, or a translation of the Hobbits' more colloquial manner (if we "accept" the books' authenticity and regard Tolkien merely as a translator). So essentially the race is more formally named "Orc", and "goblin" is a colloquial term for Orcs used by Hobbits and sometimes picked up by Men and Elves.

The original edition of The Hobbit and early drafts of The Lord of the Rings first used "goblin" everywhere and used "hobgoblin" for larger, more evil goblins: when "goblin" and "goblins" were replaced with "Orc" and "Orcs", Tolkien invented the terms "Uruks" and "Uruk-hai" for his stronger Orcs.


It is possible that "goblin" refers to the those of the orcish race who are not under the control of Sauron (or Morgoth), whereas using "orc" directly would refer to servants of (whichever) Dark Lord, but this is only readers' conjecture. Tolkien did mention several times that orcs were not inherently evil, something this theory would partly emphasize.