A word by any other name ...

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by alatar

*Note that, as an 'Merican, the reference to and the exist of the Oxford English Dictionary, noted here, sends chills up my spine like no undead ever could...

Puff n stuff, alatar. The ever so distinguished Mr. R.W. Burchfield, of OED and Fowler's fame, could lecture quite humourously on the number of definitions which American dictionaries blatently pilfered from the OED. Oh, lexicography makes a great lair for a larcenist's license, it does. Mr. Baggins would have made a right proper lexicographer and probably did once he sailed West.

Squatter makes an eloquent plea for the heroic formulation of Tolkien's languages and the impecable scholarship (although not quite science) of philology. Yet, sadly, I am also reminded of the famous observations on words by one of Lewis Carroll's characters:

Originally Posted by Humpty

'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.'

And before you declaim that it is the reader who is playing Humpty, let me hasten to add that there are many ways through which words are created and readers of LotR who may not have access to what is now an arcane academic discipline, splintered even afar off from linguistics, are within their rights as speakers of their tonque, to apply whatever forms of word meaning and derivation they have learnt when faced with a newly coined word. And it would absolutely amaze me if The Professor was ignorant of the various ways in which words are formed, in addition to their development from historical origins.

Oh, and, as an aside, the Seige of Mafeking led to the use of the verb maffick, as a back-formation from Mafeking, meaning to celebrate publicly. Well, according to the OED. People are always making up new words and can hardly be faulted for trying out comparisons when faced with what at first might appear to be a portmanteau word--the gullible nasties who fell prey to Annatar. After all, Smaug sounds so much like smoke and fog, eh? Who's to say that a fire breathing dragon ain't going to produce pollution? It's only us devious Tolkien fans who know the little joke there.