04-26-2007, 12:42 PM | #41 | |
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04-26-2007, 12:56 PM | #42 | |
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Last edited by Forkbeard : 04-26-2007 at 01:43 PM. |
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04-26-2007, 12:59 PM | #43 | |
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04-26-2007, 01:08 PM | #44 | |
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As for "presto", its Italian in origin, but becomes a common English word in the middle of the 16th century, so has been English too for 5 centuries. |
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04-26-2007, 01:25 PM | #45 | |
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Re: coney, this one has an interesting history to me. It comes into Spanish and Old French via Latin, cuniculus, which ANCIENT authorities say was a word that came from the pre-Latin languages of Spain. Anyway, it comes into English via Anglo-French in the 13th century, about the time that rabbits were introduced to England (and the word rabbit doesn't come into English for 2 centuries after that). It is interesting that Sam knows about coneys. But what is more interesting is that they seem to be a rather late introduction into Northern Europe: none of the Gaelic or Germanic languages have a "native" word for them but borrow a form of "cuniculus". ANd it is Ithilien, in the south, that we encounter our coneys, not in the north. It is interesting too that the narrator uses the term "rabbits", but Sam the character uses "coney". Anyway, I'm not sure why this is unworthy of Tolkien. |
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04-26-2007, 01:28 PM | #46 | |
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04-26-2007, 01:34 PM | #47 | |
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Second, when you're faced with an army at your doorstep, it seems silly to have a unit in a place where should the army on the doorstep break through, and win, having a unit at the Cracks of Doom is simply a waste of orcpower. |
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04-26-2007, 01:38 PM | #48 | |
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They seem to me to be rather "above" it all in LoTR in a way they aren't in The Hobbit. |
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04-26-2007, 02:56 PM | #49 |
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Whoa! Forkbeard! o.O
Next time you want to quote a bunch of posts, it's usually easier and better if you just cut/paste the quotes into a text editor, and turn it all into one post rather than make ten different ones. |
04-26-2007, 09:55 PM | #50 | |
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04-27-2007, 11:20 AM | #51 |
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"How The Lord of the Rings Should have Ended."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sP-aKSiPibo YouTube - Lord of the rings (the short version)
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Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep. Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man; But will they come when you do call for them? "I like pigs. Dogs look up to us, cats look down on us, but pigs treat us as equals."- Winston Churchill |
04-27-2007, 12:04 PM | #52 | |
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That would be the swirling vortex to another world. Cool. I want one. TMNT No, I'm not emo. I just have a really poor sense of direction. (Thanks to katya for this quote) This is the best news story EVER! http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26087293/ “Often my haste is a mistake, but I live with the consequences without complaint.”...John McCain "I shall go back. And I shall find that therapist. And I shall whack her upside her head with my blanket full of rocks." ...Louisa May |
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04-27-2007, 08:55 PM | #53 | |
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Next thing I know you'll tell me Smaug would have been silly to have filled that tiny little unprotected hole in his otherwise jewel-encrusted underside! |
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04-28-2007, 01:36 AM | #54 | ||
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04-28-2007, 09:22 AM | #55 |
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You're making my points for me, Fork. Just as the U.S. government could have prevented 9-11 because the clues were there but we missed 'em, so Sauron and Smaug, had they done their homework, would have assessed and ascertained their own vulnerabilities or, better yet, assembled a Council of sorts and sought out the larger view.
Without SHOUTING to emphasize my point, let me just add that life is full of circumstances where the victimized or defeated person says afterwards (if he's alive to say it), "I just never imagined my opponent would do that." In fact, the best military commanders do exactly the opposite - they try to imagine their opponents doing the unthinkable specifically because they know that's what the best opponents do. Sauron had one experience with this. When he captured and tortured Gollum, he learned things about the Ring, where it had gone, and who currently had it that he also probably never imagined. You would have thought the doofus would have then ordered his minions to capture a few elves and men and question them, too. In the end, we'll simply have to agree to disagree. I don't think the men of Minas Tirith expected an attack on the withered White Tree any more than Sauron expected a visit to Mount Doom yet the former posted a continuous guard. That's the normal response. Sauron's leaving Mount Doom completely vulnerable was abnormal. I won't call it an error or anachronism on Tolkien's part per se but it is a strange part of the tale. |
04-28-2007, 04:31 PM | #56 |
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Sauron knew it was impossible for any Man,Dwarf or Elf to throw the Ring in the Cracks of Doom. Only a Hobbit (which Sauron did not understand) could have resisted the temptation long enough to get it so far and in the end Frodo sucumbed and only the intervention of Gollum allowed the Quest to be succesfully completed.
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04-28-2007, 04:59 PM | #57 | |
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04-28-2007, 05:19 PM | #58 | ||||
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That's the normal response. Sauron's leaving Mount Doom completely vulnerable was abnormal. I won't call it an error or anachronism on Tolkien's part per se but it is a strange part of the tale.[/QUOTE] |
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04-28-2007, 05:21 PM | #59 | |
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04-29-2007, 09:56 AM | #60 |
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I have nothing more to add, the last word is yours.
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