Lord of the Rings Bk1.Ch01.Pt05 » Bilbo's Speech / Hobbit Math » A Long Expected Party Pt 5

[@Enerdhil]

I wonder how many of the Hobbits thought the alcohol made them hallucinate when Bilbo vanished. Maybe that was all part of Bilbo's master plan.🤔

[@rursus8354]

Bilbo's waistcoat is woven from dwarven "silk" which is most similar to steel wool. He couldn't afford mithril wool. UPDATE: for a Swede, English is a very simple language. The strong verbs are like the Swedish strong verbs, the plural is a paradise: just add -s, except in a very few cases, that are very similar to Swedish plurals. Swedish plurals, on the other hand, is a *_real_* headache. UPDATE: I'm pretty sure that the hobbit culture to a certain degree allows people named Proudfoot having their feet on the table, and that they don't exactly care about hygiene the same way that humans do. They are super-resistent to diseases and damage. UPDATE: the numerology is pretty much irrelevant. Tolkien mentions a "gross" which is a 12 times 12, as a common measure of trade items or wares. It is very common in medieval Europe. The fact that 12 is called "twelve" and not twoteen indicates that there is an earlier 12 base interfering with a 10 numeric base of counting. Tolkien is not a numerology guy, and if he would have made a treaty about it, he would probably put it in the same box as astrology, i.e. some Numenoran folly or black magic.

[@pwmiles56]

The s-plural is tricky when the word itself ends in an s. This happens with my own surname; we generally call ourselves Mileses and write it that way, like "Bagginses". Another option is the "grocer's plural" e.g. "cabbage's". This is still quite commonly seen and used to be correct, but has been rather arbitrarily ruled out.

[@KevDaly]

Sam must have a (much less fancy) waistcoat, since in The Scouring Of The Shire when the travellers finally meet the Gaffer again he asks where Sam's "weskit" is (he's wearing mail). The "foot/feet", "goose"/"geese", "man/men" type of plural is common in other Germanic languages (there's no sign of it in Gothic, but that's because it's a very early example from before that change had occurred). The "s/z" gets dropped from the end because the change of the preceding vowel makes it no longer necessary to mark the plural. We have party crackers here too. They usually contain a party hat, a piece of paper with a terrible joke, and some sort of toy or plastic something. Pulling the crackers is a way starting the festivities.

[@MessianicJewJitsu]

I dont want to be hasty, myself, but perhaps a hasty alert or counter should be added whenever things start getting hasty.

[@beckystone50]

I am team proudfoots. But this was a great episode and this discussion was laugh out loud funny😂 great job!

[@jamesfehlinger9731]

By the way, have you guys noticed that KZbin is being absolutely **flooded** with "AI"-generated Tolkien content? Images, mostly, of characters and places. Some of it's interesting, at least at first, but after a while it all seems to have a kind of bland sameness that reminds me of that unfortunate TV miniseries from -- when was it? -- a year and a half ago. But there's one **really** weird thing I discovered. A channel called "Tolkien Time" has employed ElevenLabs voice synthesis to create audio versions of some of Tolkien's letters (from the original volume) in Tolkien's own voice. And it does indeed sound like Tolkien's own voice! What would the Tolkien children (all now, mercifully perhaps, passed on) have made of that?

[@Enerdhil]

Welcome to the Age of Transhumanism. Get used to the new depictions of what people look like.

[@minsalbooks]

Team Proudfoots all the way ! 😂

[@TolkienRoad]

🙌

[@pwmiles56]

Another fun episode. My takes... The Proudfoots are one of the leading families i.e. hobbit gentry (a difference from the film). Anyway Odo is evidently rather privileged and also rude. The party guests are underlined in Appendix C -- only the "family" ones I believe. So Merry and Pippin are definitely there.

[@Enerdhil]

🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺

[@jamesrmooresr]

I agree with Greta. It should be Proudfoots. I don't value the opinion of those who put their feet on the table. 🤣