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Can Humans, 🧝Elves, and Dwarves Breed Together like 🧌Orcs and Humans?
I have intended to check it from the library eventually, but just have not had time, or have but have purposed that time inaccordingly.
 
Douglas A. Anderson has this note in The Annotated Hobbit:
I'd say
1) The usage in The Hobbit is similar to that in the imprecation "Confusion to our enemies!", attributed to people ranging from George Washington to Robert Oppenheimer;

2) Tolkien was using it it in the "schoolboy slang" sense noted above, with which his children would no doubt have been familiar; which leads to

3) It's not "Tolkien", strictly speaking, or even his Narrator, who is using the word, but Bilbo, in the first case, then Dori, and finally, all the Dwarves (apparently in chorus 😄).

I'm sure his children found all this highly amusing.
 
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Indeed it must have been amusing to them. And poor Mr. Anderson must not have put it in its context..! (though he was, of course, right there..!)

I for one can't agree... the very philology of the word does not allow it.
And, when I put in context, I cannot see Bilbo or the Dwarves, in their circumstances when using it, meaning "confusion to our enemies".

They're simply saying "drat these dwarves" or alternatively "drat that hobbit..!"
This is not 'confusticate' I fear though it could be 'confound'.
 
Since it was spoken not by "Tolkien" but by "Bilbo" and others, could it be an intended dispurpose? Just to give humor, and to show that Hobbits were not altogether the most brilliant, and Dwarves were more skilled in craft than words?

If Gandalf had spoken it, I would agree wholeheartedly that it was a mistake on Tolkien's part, but is this conclusion possible?
 

Anything is possible.
I've just an abhorrent tendency toward accuracy when it comes to words.
(Even though I myself can't put a proper sentence together, quite frequently..!!)

We now have a flock of people misapplying 'confusticate'...
Yet who knows, Tolkien may be the driver that ultimately ends up adding the meaning "drat" or "confound" as an expression of exasperation to future dictionaries for it. And it will become part of the philology of the word. They (dictionaries) are always changing based on current usage....
 
All I can say is, I personally would hesitate to go against the man of whom T.A. Shippey said "he knew more about the English language than anyone then alive". 😀
 
Squint-eyed Southerner said:
All I can say is, I personally would hesitate to go against the man of whom T.A. Shippey said "he knew more about the English language than anyone then alive". 😀
Click to expand...
Indeed. And I do not do it lightly, or without substantial research. (Though I will continue to seek it out as always.) It flies in the face of some aspects of 'reason'.

I've just not found yet anything in my pursuit of philological background or current usage that justifies it yet. When I do, I will promptly change my thinking.
I may approach the research from another direction now, and see if many others of his contemporaries were using it also in that same way.
If so, that may bring a justification, even if the dictionaries and philological dictionaries have not yet caught up with them.

Anyway, it's a trivial issue on which I most likely stand (almost) alone for now.
 
ZehnWaters said:
they seem to have been awake before the elves but weren't allowed to STAY awake
Click to expand...

Indeed. They WERE awake - fully alive. Which begs the question:
"Why didn't Eru just tell Aule "they would be living in their proper time" ? Which would essentially have been the same nature of declaration and requirement for faith that was given when he said "Ea. Let these things BE."??

Was there a particular reason why he chose to actually let Aule SEE the Dwarves being living creatures before putting them to sleep, and having them put away?

Had he left them as Aule had 'made' them, they would not have needed to be put to sleep. They could have just been put away.

(This is a very speculative question. But there really is a reason I'm asking it.)
 
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