"Magic" in middle earth

[Willow Oran]

Or perhaps he just wasn't as fluent a reader of sindarin and dwarvish as everybody assumes he is... which is sort of a silly thought given how much time the character had to master new languages. But maybe the Maiar were much more attuned to mastering the spoken word and had a bit of a weakness where the written word was concerned. They would never have needed it except in interactions with the Eruhini and their works, and what tripped Gandalf up at the doors of Moria was written wordplay, after all.

This theory has a ridiculous number of holes, of course, I'm just thinking 'out loud' at the moment.