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Second-guessing and Misunderstanding Tolkien

Is Aragorn, the Returned King in Lord of the Rings, supposed to be a caricature of Jesus?

Methinks someone needs to consult a dictionary, though even if the asker is asking whether Aragorn was inspired by Jesus, I can't imagine where they could have gotten that impression.
 
And someone got past enemy lines 😄

More rank idiocy regarding the imagined dichotomy between goblins and orcs. To my statement that the words are interchangeable, I got this gem of a reply:

 
Radaghast said:
To my statement that the words are interchangeable, I got this gem of a reply:
Click to expand...

Hmm. I've never seen that one specifically. But hey, even Tom Shippey got this wrong once. And
how long has Ardalambion been on the web? In any case, as of today, it still doesn't include orc
in the Westron wordlist.

JRRT, The Hobbit, Third Edition: "Orc is not an English word. It occurs in one or two places but is usually translated goblin (. . .) Orc is the hobbits' form of the name given at that time to these creatures, . . ."

And the Hobbits spoke (their version of) Westron/Common Speech "at that time".

Elsewhere, JRRT outright says that the word orc is Common Speech, and that it should be translated (see below). The fact that he doesn't want it translated ("it should be retained") does not change the scenario however, and in my opinion, it underlines it -- in other words, Tolkien has other reasons he wants to keep the word orc in the text, despite that he also employs the English word "goblin" in The Lord of the Rings as well.

Orc "This is supposed to be the Common Speech name of these creatures at that time; it should therefore according to the system be translated to English, or the language of translation. It was translated 'goblin' in The Hobbit, except in one place; but this word, and other words of similar sense in other European languages (as far as I know), are not really suitable. The orc in The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion, though of course partly made out of traditional features, is not really comparable in supposed origin, functions, and relation to the Elves. In any case orc seemed to me, and seems, in sound a good name for these creatures. It should be retained." JRRT, Nomenclature

This post isn't directed at you Radaghast, of course, I just haven't had a good orc versus goblin post in a while.



Aside: as I was reading through some of the threads (trying to find your specific discussion) I fell upon someone who had once held this view (no difference whatsoever) -- but by going through the History of Middle-earth draft texts, this person then concluded that there must be some difference.

And in HOME one will indeed find Tolkien's ever-changing mind (and admittedly, some simply confusing occurrences), but these need not obscure the answer that he (JRRT) ultimately landed
on, and that answer is found in later texts, including, as I say, the Third Edition Hobbit.

Oh well. I gives me something to post about!

🐾
 
The bozo chose to dig himself a deeper hole after I told him what the "Author's Note" says:
 
Someone else wrote (purple text):

"Your untrue statement …”It says plainly in The Hobbit that ‘goblin’ is the translation for ‘orc’.”..tells me you will resort to lying."

Or resort to citing JRR Tolkien

"A simple text search of the book including citations and publication info reveals the letter pattern roughly 60 times and all of those times is it only part of Orcrist or Torch as well. In none of them is the word “orc” itself ever used or translated. Tolkien never translated orc to mean goblin."

It was mostly translated to "goblin" in The Hobbit, just as Tolkien writes in Nomenclature: "It was translated "goblin" in The Hobbit, except in one place; . . ." The only error here is that Tolkien seemingly forgot one instance of orc that he had added to the second edition. Thus that should read, except in two places.

"I know you think Orcrist meaning Goblin Slayer feels obvious except the Sindarin for goblin is Orch and Orc is a 16th century Latin word."

Tolkien did borrow the word orc from Primary World languages, and he made it part of his invented language, Westron.

"That is a clear case of linguistic reversal where gibberish is ungainly conlanged into meaning. Even the Rist part reads weird as Ris is “cleave” but the dwarvish language adds hard-consonants at the end words , not elven which prefers vowel and soft-syllable ends."

See Etymologies (HOME V) where the Noldorin form is Orchrist. And yes, Sindarin words can end with -st, see also Angrist for example.

"This imbalance means that Orcrist is an unreliable indicator of language by itself. Since it is the only “orc”-indicator, this word is not evidence of connection by itself without corroborating evidence. Since you have resorted to lying, all your subsequent statements are suspect."

See above.

"They were not the same. Tolkien did the tear away page two-step retcon to make that happen. The Hobbit's goblins are not the melded creatures of the Trilogy and lies don’t become you. I believe in you to be better."

Tolkien did change his mind here, over the years -- that does not however, undo what he ultimately decided upon with respect to these words, and indeed published himself.

🐾
 
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