Teasing out fine distinctions of meaning is a key part of a lexicographer's job, as is the selection of words to convey precisely the connotations, as well as the simple meaning, of a word: Tolkien evidently took great pains over both. Other words, such as waistcoat, wake (noun), wan, and want, posed rather different challenges. This image may not be reproduced in part or in whole without the express written permission of Oxford University Press. © Image copyright Oxford University Press Characteristically, Tolkien continued to puzzle over some of these etymologies long after he had left the OED to take up a post at Leeds University: a notebook survives in the Bodleian Library in Oxford containing many pages of notes on walrus written in the 1920s, and he may have lectured on this topic in Leeds.Ī discarded draft by Tolkien of part of the entry for 'walrus': In fact walnut, walrus, and wampum were among the few entries singled out by Henry Bradley when the fascicle W to Wash was published in 1921 as containing 'etymological facts or suggestions not given in other dictionaries'. In the case of walrus, he wrote out many different versions of the etymology - six of which, remarkably, have survived in the archives thanks to Tolkien's habit of recycling discarded slips by turning them over and writing on the other side. Some words, including walnut, walrus, and wampum, seem to have been assigned to Tolkien because of their particularly difficult etymologies. The great majority of the entries for which slips of paper in Tolkien's distinctive handwriting survive in the OED archives lie in the alphabetical range waggle to warlock. to shake (any movable part of the body)'. The first entry in the published Dictionary on which he is known to have worked is that for the noun waggle he also worked on the verb, the main sense of which he defined as 'to move (anything held or fixed at one end) to and fro with short quick motions, or with a rapid undulation esp. Soon after my own employment on the Dictionary began in 1987, I decided to investigate just what Tolkien's contribution had been in that period.Īs one of the assistants of Henry Bradley, the second of the four Editors of the First Edition of the OED, Tolkien worked on words near the beginning of the letter W. What is rather less well known is that in 19, at the very start of his career, Tolkien worked on the staff of the Oxford English Dictionary he later said of this time that he 'learned more in those two years than in any other equal period of my life'. Tolkien's The Fellowship of the Ring, it has occasionally been mentioned that Tolkien was an English professor. In his fiction, which earned him the informal title of "the father of modern fantasy literature," Tolkien presents readers with a vision of freedom- nothing preachy- that a strong, unequivocal faith can transmit.Amid all the publicity surrounding this year's release of the film of J. It was through The Hobbit and the three-volume The Lord of the Rings that Tolkien became a literary giant throughout the world. Left under the guardianship of his mother's friend and priest, Ronald forged his closest relationships with friends who shared his love for literature and languages.Īs Tolkien grew older, married, served as a soldier, and became a well-respected Oxford professor publishing weighty works on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Beowulf, the Christian faith that his mother had instilled in him continued as an intrinsic element of his creative imagination and his everyday life. His was not a storybook childhood- his father died when Ronald was three years old, and his mother died just before he reached adolescence. Tolkien, or Ronald as he was known, led a young life filled with uncertainty and instability. But all, through their relationships, struggles, prayers, and desires, uniquely illuminate our shared experience.īorn in South Africa and growing up in Great Britain, J.R.R.
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