Gollum questions.

[Galadriel55]

Instead of hobbits calling themselves halflings, it would be more logical for them to call the Big People doublings.

Just thought I'd put the weird thought out there, because I agree with the above comments and have nothing else to add.

[jallanite]

Agreed.

I suppose that Doubling, unlike Halfling, might have seemed too obviously a politically correct invention to catch on.

I suppose the hobbits might instead have been called beardless-dwarves. But that name may have been too long for comfortable use: “‘A very nice well-spoken gentlebeardlessdwarf is Mr. Bilbo as I’ve always said’, the Gaffer declared.”

[Mithalwen]

Yes, Galadriel, I wondered if the y might regard men as giants which would perhaps have misled Sauron.
Also the halfling term true when Numenoreans were at their tallest compared to not the tallest hobbits. Now the same UT note clarifys that Shire Hobbits at the time of LOTR were 3 to 4 foot and the exceptions were taller.

So assuming that the diminished dunedain were still generally six foot plus and taller than the Rohirrim who were in turn taller than Breelanders.. it ia likely that the current Britih average height for a man of 5"10 would have been tall for Bree and maybe standard around 5"6 . So with Hobbits benefitting from several generations of settled farming tending closer to four, it means that in and around the Shire and Bree most inhabitants are likely to be between 3"6 and 5"6 and with dwarves around bridging the still noticeable division between big and little, it is too much of continuum for a term such as halfling to be meaningful. Focussing on another distinction such as beardlessness does seem quite plausible in that context.

[Alfirin]

Wouldn't that mean that to a Harfoot or a Fallowhide, Stoors (who could grow beards) would be considered one of the Big Folk, as opposed to one of their own?
On a related note, would I be right in that, much as the Stoors were somewhat more hairy than the Harfoots (if they can grow beards, the rest of their hair is likely to be thicker and more plentiful as well) The Harfoots tend to be more hairy than the Fallowhides. I keep thinking of the Fallowhides as being the least hair of the three Hobbit Races, though I amit this is probably being colored by both them seeming to be "Elvish hobbits" (in the same way Stoors are "Mannish Hobbits") and of course the modern meaning of the word "fallow" (Tolkien being far better versed in language than I, I suppose he could have taken the word "fallow" from some other unrelated root or meant it in a now archaic meaning I am not aware of)

[jallanite]

Originally Posted by Mithalwen

So with Hobbits benefitting from several generations of settled farming tending closer to four, it means that in and around the Shire and Bree most inhabitants are likely to be between 3"6 and 5"6 and with dwarves around bridging the still noticeable division between big and little, it is too much of continuum for a term such as halfling to be meaningful.

But the name Halfling was coined when those who were later known as Hobbits still lived in the upper Vales of the Anduin, very far from Bree. Presumably the name Halfling was meaningful to those who invented the name, whether the Sindarin rendering Perian or the Westron rendering Banakil or a rendering in some other Elvish or Mannish tongue was the oldest rendering. Presumably those who first coined the name and those who continued its use felt that the name was useful for application to a people who were close to being half their size, even smaller than the Dwarves.

One reason the later Hobbit may have disliked the name halfling is that they saw it as a gross exaggeration of their smallness. But banakil and perian remained the name of this people in standard Westron and in Sindarin. And both meant ‘halfling’, regardless that the term was not precisely suitable.

Originally Posted by Alfirin

Wouldn't that mean that to a Harfoot or a Fallowhide, Stoors (who could grow beards) would be considered one of the Big Folk, as opposed to one of their own?

Tolkien never writes that any Stoors could grow beards. In his Prologue he writes only:

But they [the hobbits of Eastfarthing] were well known to be Stoors in a large part of their blood, as indeed was shown by the down that many grew on their chins. No Harfoots or Fallohide had any trace of a beard.

Some down on the chin is hardly comparable to the full and luxurious beards of the Dwarves or the beards that most Men could grow.

On a related note, would I be right in that, much as the Stoors were somewhat more hairy than the Harfoots (if they can grow beards, the rest of their hair is likely to be thicker and more plentiful as well)

Maybe, and maybe not. Tolkien only mentions that some of the Stoor-descended hobbits at the end of the Third Age had down on their chins while other hobbits had no trace of a beard. This suggestion is at the best only possible, but not provable.

I amit this is probably being colored by both them seeming to be "Elvish hobbits" (in the same way Stoors are "Mannish Hobbits") and of course the modern meaning of the word "fallow" (Tolkien being far better versed in language than I, I suppose he could have taken the word "fallow" from some other unrelated root or meant it in a now archaic meaning I am not aware of)

From J. R. R. Tolkien’s “Nomenclature of The Lord of the Rings”, currently available in Hammond and Scull’s The Lord of the Rings: A reader’s companion, pages 750–82:

Fallohide This has given difficulty. It should if possible be translated, since it is meant to represent a name with a meaning in CS, though one devised in the past and so containing archaic elements. It is made of E. fallow + hide (cognates of Ger. falb and Haut) and means ‘paleskin’. It is archaic since fallow ‘pale, yellowish’ is not now in use, except in fallow deer; and hide is no longer applied to human skin (except as a transference back from its modern use of animal hides, used for leather). But this element of archaism need not be imitated. See Marcho and Blanco. See also note on relation of special Hobbit words to the language of Rohan [in Appendix F, p. 1136, III: 414].

The element fallow ‘brownish yellow’ used here derives from Old English fealo ‘dull-coloured, yellow, yellowish red, brown’ from the Indo-European base *pel- ‘dark-coloured, grey’. It is not at all related to fallow ‘land plowed but left unsown’ from Old English fealg ‘harrow’ from Indo-European *polkā- ‘something turned’ from another base *pel- ‘to turn’.

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by jallanite

One reason the later Hobbit may have disliked the name halfling is that they saw it as a gross exaggeration of their smallness. But banakil and perian remained the name of this people in standard Westron and in Sindarin. And both meant ‘halfling’, regardless that the term was not precisely suitable.

I think that the detail of "half" is not particularly important. The Big Folk would have continued using halfling from habit and because it really does not matter if it is halfling or threequarterling, as long as it gets the point across. The hobbits would continue to be offended because halfling and threequarterling alike are diminutive in their nature, regardless of how accurate. No people wants to be named relative to another, since to each people they are the norm.

[Alfirin]

Originally Posted by jallanite

[/INDENT]The element fallow ‘brownish yellow’ used here derives from Old English fealo ‘dull-coloured, yellow, yellowish red, brown’ from the Indo-European base *pel- ‘dark-coloured, grey’. It is not at all related to fallow ‘land plowed but left unsown’ from Old English fealg ‘harrow’ from Indo-European *polkā- ‘something turned’ from another base *pel- ‘to turn’.

You know since I know what a fallow deer is, and why it is called so, I should have known this. I though it has something to do with "pale" but though I was getting fallow confused with "sallow"

[Mithalwen]

i did say that halfling had been accurate when coined. The point i was trying to make as i rambled was indeed that it would have seemed a bit cheeky for a five foot six Bree man to call a nearly four foot hobbit Halfling.

Terms which were originally merely descriptive becoming perjorative are clearly not a modern phenomenon.

[jallanite]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

I think that the detail of "half" is not particularly important. The Big Folk would have continued using halfling from habit and because it really does not matter if it is halfling or threequarterling, as long as it gets the point across. The hobbits would continue to be offended because halfling and threequarterling alike are diminutive in their nature, regardless of how accurate. No people wants to be named relative to another, since to each people they are the norm.

True. I very much agree.

In Breeland the names “Big Folk” and “Little Folk” are both accepted for different peoples, perhaps because in Breeland both of the peoples are considered to be equally Bree folk. In Breeland the name “Hobbit” is also used.

Those who were the ancestors of those called Hobbits must have come to a decision over whether their people should be reckoned as Men with some differences from normal Men in terms of size, normal length of life, and hair on their feet, or they should be reckoned as a separate people entirely, as different from Men as Elves and Dwarves. This decision was probably not taken at a single place and time, but emerged gradually. We see the results in the title gentlehobbit and when Merry and Pippin explain what kind of being they are to Treebeard, never thinking to explain that they are a special kind of Men and that Treebeard need not change his Old Lists.

Tolkien himself says in Letters, in a footnote to Letter 131 to Milton Waldman:

The Hobbits are, of course, really meant to be a branch of the specifically human race (not Elves or Dwarves) – hence the two kinds can dwell together (as at Bree) and are called just the Big Folk and Little Folk.

On names of peoples, Tolkien writes in Unfinished Tales, page 496: “Since Ghân-buri-Ghân was attempting to use the Common Speech he callled his people ‘Wild Men’ (not without irony); but this was not of course their own name for themselves.”

Originally Posted by Mithalwen

i did say that halfling had been accurate when coined. The point i was trying to make as i rambled was indeed that it would have seemed a bit cheeky for a five foot six Bree man to call a nearly four foot hobbit Halfling.

True. Except we do not know where and when the term halfling was coined. The term was almost true when in respect to the Númenóreans, but it seems to me very dubious that this was a term coined by Númenóreans who are never mentioned, either before or after the sinking of Númenór as ever present in the area of the upper Vales of Anduin, where the folk later known as Hobbits were first recorded as dwelling.

Presumably the earliest records of these people would be written in Sindarin and would use the name perian. But perian might well be a translation of the name used by their Mannish neighbours, who may have spoken Westron or may have spoken some other Mannish tongue.

But you are quite right that whether coined by an Elf or Man, the term halfling does seem insulting.