jwzRE: https://sfba.social/@bitterkarella/116648620727300005
No frsrs da papa quoting Gandalf instead of Aslan is *definitely* picking a team.
Seriously though, Tolkien was a Serious Thinker writing Serious Literature. I mean yes, he had a villain called Grima Wormtongue -- you know, of the Chicago Wormtongues -- but that's completely different than, like, "Luke Starkiller".
Angus McIntyre@jwz @pluralistic (puts on Tolkien pedant hat) “Wormtongue” was a nickname or epithet that he earned by his behavior; Gandalf calls him “Grima, son of Galmód”, so that was presumably how he was known among his peers before he started acting as a lobbyist for Saruman.
It’s more like calling someone, say, Kegbreath or Couchfucker than a family name like Starkiller. Although, who knows? Maybe in Lucas’s universe star-killing is a basic trade that became a family name like Baker or Miller.
Seiðr@angusm @jwz @pluralistic Spaniard here, JFYI: "grima" in Spanish means "cringe, disgust, uneasiness". Not really a good family name either. Talk about deterministic nominativeness.
mbpaz@Illuminatus @angusm @jwz @pluralistic Spaniard too - I always assumed Tolkien had "grimace" in mind, but he had an extensive knowledge of many languages so who knows
jonoleth@mbpaz @Illuminatus @angusm @jwz @pluralistic etymonline claims "grimace" is (possibly) from Old English "grīma" meaning "mask, helmet".
I'm sure there's whole books on the real-world etymology of LotR somewhere though >_>
Joseph Allen@jonoleth @mbpaz @Illuminatus @angusm @jwz @pluralistic Around 2010 I took a linguistic anthropology course through Harvard Extension School online that was entirely focused on the works of Tolkien.
So yeah, there is definitely a lot of work out there on that lol.