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| Dreamflower's Musings by Dreamflower | 13 Review(s) |
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| Larner | Reviewed Chapter: 2 on 11/16/2005 |
| A wonderful list and reminder we do tend to overdo things on occasion. But Tolkien did come up with the most wonderful expressions--"Ninnyhammer! Noodles!" Yes, bless our Sam. Author Reply: "We tend to overdo things on occasion." Exactly. JRRT was a master of understatement. That is often what I find off-key in some of the over-blown stories I often come across. And as to language, well, our modern ears have been desensitized to the sorts of language that even as short a time as fifteen years ago would have been "bleeped" for public broadcast, and now is common. Sam had an extensive vocabulary of these humorous expletives--as I said, many of them were his, and except for "oh dear" or "bless me" he rarely used the same one twice, LOL! | |
| shirebound | Reviewed Chapter: 2 on 11/16/2005 |
| Thank you for gathering these all in one place! Author Reply: You're welcome! I thought it might be useful! 8-) | |
| PIppinfan1988 | Reviewed Chapter: 2 on 11/16/2005 |
| Awesome--and excellent research as always! I will confess that I wasn't quite as scrupulous about my hobbits and their language when I first began writing. Long before joining SOA, as my universe developed more and more (and I was done venting), I came to realize that it was actually distasteful for (my) hobbits to use that sort of language. I tend to think of hobbits as a bit childlike (not to be mistaken or confused with childish, or children), so if I wanted to convey that in my stories, they shouldn't be cussing. So, I stopped. I think I got most, if not all, of those expletives out of my tales as I posted them here, but I can be lazy at times. If you or anyone else comes across any, please let me know--I would prefer to replace it with something more hobbity. Now that ff.net allows editing of single chapters, some day in the future I will go back there and clean those up, too. Thanks for yet another grand Musing! Hope to see another one soon! :-) Pippinfan Author Reply: Well, JRRT basically thought of "cussing" as "orc-language", and he never depicted it, even among orcs. It's not only hobbits who don't use that language, but neither do his Men, Dwarves or Elves. Ever. Even bad guys. And it has two results: first of all, it uplifts the characters of his characters--they have the restraint and the vocabulary *not* to use that sort of language. Now I do happen to think that occasionally some of them might. So I might say that Boromir was swearing. Or that Pippin was using language he should not have known. (The worst I've done was once having Pippin say "bloody", and Merry immediately reproving him for his language, and Merry once writing "bloody, blasted" with a strike through. I'd never do worse than that.) But the second result is one I touched on briefly. By avoiding that sort of language, and by avoiding slang and so forth, it gives the whole work a sense of timelessness that keeps it fresh and undated. | |