The seven dwarves?

heheh, a very cute post/question.

I think one of the main bolts that strikes anyone who first begins to read the LoTR is the sheer amount of DELIBERATENESS that went into it. If one merely thumbs through the appendixes, one is utterly struck by the AMOUNT of stories that serve as backgrounds to the main story; which is in itself a masterpiece of some effort. One sees talk of calendars, talk of languages, of peoples; yea, of an author going OUT OF HIS WAY to hide his creative mind behind the title of "translator" or "discoverer" or however any of you would like to word that particular concept.

So when we run across something like this, I think it safe to say it was done deliberately, because this is in character with Tolkien.

Unless, of course, that character is also contradicted by the discovery.

By this I mean that, as I have already said, Tolkien put a lot of effort into making sure everything was perfectly aligned, everything perfectly "researched," the illusion perfectly concealing any "slight-of-hand." And the minute we see talk of "seven dwarves" we tend to look at the whole work in a different light; and all the things that make it wonderful are suddenly perverted and become "lame." So because of this, I don't think there was a pun intended. It would be self-defeating.