English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room - 2022-09-27 (page 1 of 2)

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12:05 AM

With colour for emphasis, specially for @tchrist.

@M.A.R. Unlike nowhere else.

@tchrist In the latter examples, the PPs are Adjuncts/Adverbials/embellishments, but in the former they're complements. So maybe they oughta. (You can do tests for this using the preform phrase do so. This must semantically include complements which are then ungrammatical if they are stuck back on or are different. Tchrist climbed up Everest, but Mitch did so up the Tiger is ungrammatical. However, Tchrist climbed Everest in his Abba t-shirt, but Mitch did so in his birthday suit is fine. (Sorry, Mitch) — Araucaria - Not here any more. 5 mins ago

@Mitch So, about your simian climbing habits, sir....

Catch a tiger by the tail.

All around the mulberry bush the monkey chased the weasel.

@tchrist Hmm ungrammatical.

I would say ugly, but I'm not sure about ungrammatical?

I don't know. It's weird enough to give one pause, that's for sure.

I'm assuming the Tiger is also a mountain.

Or the sentence would be rather nonsensical.

Try "the Matterhorn".

12:12 AM

Right.

It just sounds unnatural.

But Tchrist climbed up Everest before Mitch did so is fine.

I'm tiring of up, though.

Does a cat climb a tree or climb up a tree?

A cat is talented. It can do both at the same time.

If he can climb up the tree, why can't he climb down it?

@tchrist Agreed.

@tchrist Actually, that was just what I was thinking when I first saw the example.

Julie Andrews never sang Climb up every mountain.

12:16 AM

@tchrist Because he's scared?

In Dutch, you cannot say climb a mountain, but that is what I would say in English.

@Cerberus It's because his claws don't rotate the other way.

So he can't go down head first, as it isn't safe.

But he would climb down face up?

He has to back down.

Yes.

Just as we would.

And most birds.

It's not a natural posture for him.

12:17 AM

Very few birds can climb head down.

Nuthatches, I think?

Yes.

Brown creepers spiral upwards.

But nuthatches come down.

I think I wrote about that in one of the factoids for the bird game I mentioned.

@tchrist Because he has staff that takes care of that.

@Cerberus You should have nuthatches and tits and creepers where you live, too.

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@tchrist Yes, there are several in the game.

An American one in the base game, a Eurasian one in the European expansion.

12:21 AM

An echidna has backwards claws, I think. And sloths.

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Creepers are Certhians.

Close allies to Sitta, but different.

I think you can guess what the Dutch word for nuthatch might be.

Clever bombers?

Eurasian treecreeper

The Eurasian treecreeper or common treecreeper (Certhia familiaris) is a small passerine bird also known in the British Isles, where it is the only living member of its genus, simply as treecreeper. It is similar to other treecreepers, and has a curved bill, patterned brown upperparts, whitish underparts, and long stiff tail feathers which help it creep up tree trunks. It can be most easily distinguished from the similar short-toed treecreeper, which shares much of its European range, by its different song. The Eurasian treecreeper has nine or more subspecies which breed in different parts of its...

> The genus name is from the Ancient Greek κερθιος/kerthios, a small insectivorous bird that lived in trees mentioned by Aristotle, perhaps a treecreeper.

I'm sure you know what a boom must be?

I'm not sure English has a relative of the verb kleven.

12:26 AM

A beam.

Indeed.

Or a boom.

I think mostly just ships have booms.

Not sure.

Araucaria - Not here any more.

@tchrist Yeah, that's because up Everest is a complement of climb in the first clause and therefore included in the meaning of so in the second. The reason why Tchrist climbed up Everest, and Mitch did so up the Eiger is weird is because it should mean Tchrist climbed up Everest and Mitch climbed up Everest up the Eiger - but your brain won't let that happen, it can't be right ...

I think the nautical word must be from Dutch.

@Cerberus Cleave, cleft, cloven?

@Araucaria-Nothereanymore. We should tell our NNS to just climb mountains and stop climbing up them. Then you don't have any way of mislaying your ups.

12:30 AM

@Araucaria-Nothereanymore. I climbed up a lamppost and you did so up a tree.

Did so a tree, maybe?

Not so great.

It sounds somewhat odd, but does it really sound ungrammatical?

Araucaria - Not here any more.

@Cerberus I climbed up a lamppost up a tree?

@tchrist Yeah, also possible, but also ugly.

@Araucaria-Nothereanymore. I understand your argument.

I climbed up the tree, and you the ladder.

12:31 AM

But I'm not entirely sure I'm feeling it 100% in this case.

Just get rid of the verb completely, and hm, the up.

@tchrist Nope! That's klieven.

Araucaria - Not here any more.

@Cerberus I think it's a meaning problem exposed by the grammar rather than an ungrammatical string in itself. Erm, I think ...

I ascended a tree and you to heaven.

@Cerberus At least it sounds right that way.

12:32 AM

@Araucaria-Nothereanymore. Hmmm...

@tchrist Kleven is to stick.

He sticks to a tree.

Same verb.

A wife cleaves to her husband.

Or she cleaves him with an axe, which is different.

Oh, really!

@tchrist I don't think I knew that.

Araucaria - Not here any more.

Bob's wife cleaved to her husband and Bill's did so with an axe.

A perfect zeugma.

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12:34 AM

@Araucaria-Nothereanymore. I agree that zeugmata are normally ungrammatical.

Which is why they are a figure of speech at all.

As you see, we have two completely different identical verbs. :)

Yeah, I would expect those to be unrelated.

The sticky one is a lot less common.

Yes.

Well, power of ten.

12:35 AM

Oh, is that the red dots?

Yes.

The number of red dots is the power of ten.

Makes sense.

And somebody wrote another these again.

I would have expected a greater gap between the two.

> Etymology: Old English had two verbs; clífan strong (*cláf , plural clifon , clifen ), and clifian , cleofian weak (clifode , -od ). (1) The former was a Common Germanic strong verb, in Old Saxon biklîƀan to adhere (Middle Dutch clîƀan to cling, climb, Dutch beklijven to adhere, stick), Old High German chlîban (Middle High German rare, klîban ) to adhere, stick, Old Norse klîfa to clamber, climb by clinging < Old Germanic *klîƀ-an , perhaps ultimately < simpler root kli- to stick: compare climb v., clay n., clam v.1 Of this strong verb Old English shows only a few examples of the present,…

12:36 AM

Although I suppose one could be between 500% and 5000% more common than the other?

@Cerberus Yes, the bands are broad.

Band 4 is "Band 4 contains words which occur between 0.1 and 1.0 times per million words in typical modern English usage."

That's the sticky cleave.

Right.

Also the elder.

There was some muddling-minding between the two cleaves.

> Etymology: Common Germanic: Old English clíofan, cléofan, past tense cléaf, plural clufon, past participle clofen, corresponding to Old Saxon clioƀan (Middle Dutch clieven, clûven, Dutch klieven), Old High German chlioban (Middle High German, modern German klieben), Old Norse kljúfa (Swedish klyfva, Danish klöve), not recorded in Gothic < Old Germanic type *kleuƀ-, klauƀ—kluƀum, kluƀano-, corresponding to pre-Germanic *gleubh-, in Greek γλυϕ- ‘to cut with a knife, carve’, and perhaps Latin glūb- ‘to peel, flay’.

That's the more common one, the one in frequency band 5.

>
> From the 14th cent. the inflectional forms of this verb have tended to run together with those of cleave v.2 ‘to stick’. Though the latter was originally clive , it had also the variants cleove , clēve , the latter of which at length prevailed; the two verbs having thus become identical in the present stem were naturally confused in their other inflections.

Araucaria - Not here any more.

@tchrist I take it cleft is only possible as an inflection of the Macbeth type?

So the cutting one has strong forms in "Past tense clove, clave, cleaved, cleft; Past participle cloven, clove, cleaved, cleft;" but the sticky one has mostly just weak forms "Past tense cleaved, clave; Past participle cleaved". But show me a speaker today who doesn't pause for these, trying to figure out which to use.

12:44 AM

Yeah, I would have expected that.

@Araucaria-Nothereanymore. It's more common as a participle, so cleft hoof.

> Emissaries they were from Lords of the West, the Valar, who still took counsel for the governance of Middle-earth, and when the shadow of Sauron began first to stir again took this means of resisting him. For with the consent of Eru they sent members of their own high order, but clad in bodies of as of Men, real and not feigned...

I am surprised Eru was actually actively involved.

I really first think of cleft as a noun.

I think of hooves.

"Here and there were clefts in the stone through which men could shoot."

> Now Gurthang had been wrested from Turambar's hand in the throe of Glaurung, and it clave to the belly of the dragon.

Gosh, I think that has to be sticky one not the splitty one.

12:47 AM

Yes.

Araucaria - Not here any more.

@tchrist Right. There's loads of those older/less frequent verbs that I can't work out the past/participle forms for. If you're in a hurry you have to make them up ...

Does the master ever err?

With English inflections? MODERN ones? No, because he knew all the older forms.

> The weak past tense and past participle cleaved were probably mainly taken over from cleave v.2, where they were original; but they might also arise independently in this verb. For the subsequent shortening of cleaved to cleft, there was the obvious precedent of leave, left, bereave, bereft, etc.

@Araucaria-Nothereanymore. "1597 W. Shakespeare Romeo & Juliet ii. iii. 14 The verie pinne of his heart cleft with the blinde bow-boyes but-shaft."

@Araucaria-Nothereanymore. "1600 W. Shakespeare Much Ado about Nothing ii. i. 238 She would haue made Hercules..haue cleft his club to make the fire."

So probably.

> Dwarves had not passed that way for many years, but Gandalf had, and he knew how evil and danger had grown and thriven in the Wild, since the dragons had driven men from the lands, and the goblins had spread in secret after the battle of the Mines of Moria.

I think he just wanted driven and thriven to both be there.

@tchrist -totally convinced-

I was already convinced about underlining

Because it clave to your belly?

12:52 AM

Perhaps.

but all you links are very convincing about color.

@tchrist argh

Freudian ship?

What a clover you are!

To @Cerberus's point there are definitely use cases for color (syntax coloring eg) but for people writing answers bolding should be enough.

I wonder though if MathJax allows coloring... does it?

That's what he was saying.

Araucaria - Not here any more.

"He had ordered her now to leave her father and to cleave to him; but she had cleft to her father and had deserted him." <-- Anthony Trollope. As usual I don't know what he's trying to say

12:56 AM

> Then Gothmog hewed him with his black axe, and a white flame sprang up from the helm of Fingon as it was cloven. Thus fell the High King of the Noldor; and they beat him into the dust with their maces, and his banner, blue and silver, they trod into the mire of his blood.

@Araucaria-Nothereanymore. heh

@tchrist oh. I should read more.

So all those mathy sites... people could be loading up on the color then?

Yet they do not.

@Mitch Ever has that been my rede.

@Mitch Right.

@Mitch Because they have better taste.

That's all academic... I feel like you... should put all those links in your answers but that might be too much work.

1:00 AM

What colors should I use for the linkies?

> In a letter written in 1958 my father said that he knew nothing clearly about ‘the other two’ [the Blue Wizards], since they were not concerned in the history of the North-west of Middle-earth.

‘I think,’ he wrote, ‘they went as emissaries to distant regions, East and South, far out of Númenórean range: missionaries to “enemy-occupied” lands, as it were. What success they had I do not know; but I fear that they failed, as Saruman did, though doubtless in different ways; and I suspect they were founders or beginners of secret cults and “magic” traditions that outlasted the fall of Sauron.’

@tchrist I think the labor involved to do that is only ever practiced by those who have lived inside LaTeX for awhile.

Some interesting stuff in the Unfinished Tales.

RAther.

Those papers I've seen that have used color have all done so very tastefully, even when used copiously.

I think the labor expended deters casual users.

@tchrist haha.

none?

transparent

1:05 AM

Unvisited links are RGB = (242, 116, 13) on our meta, and visited ones 145, 70, 8. I can't be arsed to convert that to HSV so you can tell whether they're of comparable hue.

> for he was the Enemy of Sauron, opposing the fire that devours and wastes with the fire that kindles, and succours in wanhope and distress

Wanhoop, that's Dutch!

Is it?

Yes.

It is despair.

@Araucaria-Nothereanymore. The Man [her suitor? her husband?] had ordered her to abandon her Father in favor of the Man, but she had stuck with her Father and abandoned the Man.

It is.

1:06 AM

Wan- usually means something like bad.

Wangedrocht is something like ugly being.

Though gedrocht on its own is ugly already.

Wangedrag is misbehaviour. But worse.

@Cerberus It's not the despair that's so bad. The despair you can handle. It's the hope.

Huh, chat is bugging out.

@Mitch Poor you.

> But in that spring Níniel conceived, and she became pale and wan, and all her happiness was dimmed.

Yeah, I'm not sure wan is related.

Dutch also has waan, which means something like misconception, idée fixe.

Araucaria - Not here any more.

@Robusto Ah, of course! Got the reference for him wrong.

1:11 AM

@Cerberus It is, but it is distant. It's a privative suffix in wanhope.

Waanidee = wrong idea, idée fixe.

@tchrist Oh, really.

I thought wan "pale" was related to wane in English.

> Etymology: < wan- prefix + hope n.1 Compare Middle Low German, Middle Dutch wanhope (modern Dutch -hoop ), whence Middle Swedish vanhop , Middle Danish vanhob . Compare unhope n.

@Araucaria-Nothereanymore. There's a reason they don't write like that anymore.

> a prefix expressing privation or negation (approximately equivalent to un- prefix1 or mis- prefix1), representing. Old English wan-, wǫn-, corresponding to Old Frisian. wan-, won-, Old Saxon wan- (only in wanskefti misfortune = Old English wansceaft), Middle Low German, Middle Dutch wan- (modern Dutch in many new formations, esp. in the sense ‘wrong’, ‘mis-’, as in wanbestuur misgovernment, wanluid discordant sound), Old High German wan-, wana (only in wanwâfan unarmed, wanaheil unhealthy, infirm, wanawizzi lacking wit, insane), Middle High German wan- (only in wanwitze inherited from…

Waan "misconception" is related to wish and Venus.

1:13 AM

> Of the many new formations that arose in Middle English, only wantoȝen, undisciplined, wanton adj., still survives in use (with no consciousness of its etymological meaning); wanhope and wantrust may have been suggested by the equivalent Middle Dutch forms. It was in the north that the prefix was most prolific, and it probably continued to be productive far into the modern period.

Venom is from Venus! I had no idea.

> The following words, peculiar to the Scottish and northern dialects, are recorded in the Eng. Dial. Dict., mostly with examples (or references to glossaries etc.) from the 18th cent., but few if any of them are now in current use:—

wancanny adj., wanchancy adj., wancheer grief, sadness, wancouth adj. = uncouth, wandeidy adj., mischievous, wandought n. and adj., wanearthly adj., wanease n., wanfortune n., wanfortunate, adj. wanhap n., wanliesum adj., wanlit adj., wanluck, wanown't adj. = unowned, wanreck ‘mischance, ruin’, wanrest n., wanthriven adj., wanuse misuse, waste, wanweird n., wa…

Wanton, cool.

A metric one.

@Cerberus Wahnsinn

1:16 AM

Yes, Dutch waanzin.

> Gandalf brought all by vigilance and labour to that end which the Valar under the One that is above them had designed...

wancouth youth

So the Valar and Eru designed the fate of men. So they designed their suffering, too.

Very Abrahamic.

They must be wancanny.

Fate?

Yes?

The Canny X-Men doesn't sound as good

1:18 AM

The important developments that happened on Middle Earth, with men and elves. That must be part of their design.

The plan was to boot the liar.

Well, that's in the Song of the Ainur, where the themes of the two kindreds were first elaborated into existence.

Where "Sauron" means liar.

So that was the plan. Get rid of him.

Eru could just have done so directly.

Magic wand?

No tale would we have.

Of course he is the most to blame.

No, indeed.

But we would have it if the gods had not been made all powerful and all knowing by Tolkien. It is the same weakness the stories from Abrahamic mythology have.

No one wants to take responsibility... just blame these 'gods' for all their troubles

1:20 AM

But I am repeating myself.

I don't think it is right to blame the creator of the universe for the choices made by his free-willed creations.

It is when he is all powerful and all knowing.

He can just intervene when something goes wrong, too.

Using the cult of authority as an excuse to be cruel.

@Cerberus Weakness? It allows the stories to have some interest.

There are those who blamed God for Hitler. And vice versa. It's not pretty.

People are not drawn to religion by its ability to explain where deuterium came from.

@Mitch Yes, but they should not have made the gods omnipotent and omniscient, then.

1:23 AM

No gods can be that.

God alone can.

The Abrahamic god explicitly is, isn't he?

@Cerberus People are hyperbolic

There can be only one power, one knowing.

I think there's room for more than one

@Cerberus You said "made the gods".

1:24 AM

Well, perhaps you think there is no problem with this discrepancy in Abrahamic mythology. So be it.

Yes, I think it does not matter.

Again, you misunderstand the allure if that spoils it for you.

@tchrist In the sentence about Tolkien.

It doesn't matter

@tchrist I misunderstand the allure?

The Valar don't know everything. Clearly.

1:25 AM

I think omnipotent and omnicient gods are a mistake in logic and narrative.

They are not those things!

@tchrist But Eru does.

Making it all consistent is a waste of time.

And the Valar should be powerful enough to remove Sauron directly.

They are.

1:26 AM

And find him much, much quicker than Gandalf did.

Did you really think they should?

Just have no tale.

Of course they should, if they mean well.

Which shows you how bad an idea the Abrahamic divinity is.

Which Tolkien should not have borrowed.

Sigh.

He had to.

That's all he was able to do.

He should have made gods that were all good, but not all powerful.

Limit their power, to strengthen the narrative.

Instead of these inconsistencies.

So the stories are about good b=people only accidentally doing bad to other good people?

1:28 AM

He was trying to create a pre-Christian mythology for England that did not violate the Christian world.

So it had to work within that same framework in order not to render it invalid.

And at the end everybody forgives each other for the misunderstanding?

Logic is overrated

@tchrist Yes, and I think he shouldn't have.

@Mitch You forgot how it all ends?

I can appreciate his taking the good and evil from the Zarathustrian tradition, which includes he Abrahamic one.

But he shouldn't have taken the all powerful element.

@tchrist and then there's a feast? of reconciliation?

1:31 AM

The thing you mentioned about destroying Morgoth would mean destroying Middle Earth, such things are good.

@Cerberus IS it really 'all-powerful' in Tolkien?

The christian 'all-powerful' is just hyperbole by ... who was that guy? Aquinas?

Even though I would say that part is still very much inconsistent, for the Valar could just have used their power to bolster the strength of the elven armies, if nothing else, to defeat Morgoth, instead of doing nothing for ages.

Like little kids saying my dad is stronger than yours, and then saying he's stronger than -everybody-.

@Mitch Illuvatar is all powerful, and the Valar are close enough that they could have done a LOT (red clouring) more to counter Sauron.

@Cerberus Sometimes you just get tired and hope that everyone else will just take core of the obvious.

1:33 AM

Bad gods.

@Cerberus That's like expecting Harry Potter to be consistent.

Tolkien was not Harry Potter.

He makes an effort to be consistent, in most things.

It's not like any of these writers are logicians.

I'm watching The Rings of Power at the very moment.

Do you like it now?

It's OK

1:38 AM

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is an American fantasy television series based on the novel The Lord of the Rings and its appendices by J. R. R. Tolkien. Developed by showrunners J. D. Payne and Patrick McKay for the streaming service Prime Video, the series is set in the Second Age of Middle-earth, thousands of years before Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. It is produced by Amazon Studios in cooperation with HarperCollins and New Line Cinema, and in consultation with the Tolkien Estate. Amazon bought the television rights for The Lord of the Rings for US$250 million in...

Hmm.

What's good, what's bad?

I feel like half of everybody is going to die and nobody is worried about that.

@Cerberus I think it is slow. And way too many interleaving plots.

like a soap opera

but

no romance

Hmm.

except between dwarves

Are the many plots actually from Tolkien?

Or invented by the people who made the new series?

1:40 AM

Tolkien's

OK.

Then I'd be fine with that.

but

interpolations

Not good ones?

it's based on the appendices in Return of the King

which are very... cursory

@Cerberus It's hard to tell

depends on how the end, or link up

Hmm I see.

1:42 AM

Galadriel, as a character, I can't tell.

> The second of the great prophecies made by Mandos (his first being the Prophecy of the North in which he recounted the Doom of the Noldor), in which he foretold the events surrounding the return of Melkor into the world. According to the prophecy, Melkor would evade the vigilance of the Valar and destroy the Sun and the Moon, but be driven from the sky into Valinor by Eärendil, where the Last Battle would be fought. There Melkor would finally be destroyed by Tulkas, aided by Eönwë and Túrin Turambar. After that time the world would be remade, and the three Silmarils would be recovered and…

It sometimes has too much of the 'Medieval Times' vibe

6

A: Second prophecy of Mandos

The Second Prophecy of Mandos is covered in some detail in the History of Middle Earth books, and formed the original ending of the "Silmarillion". It refers to events at the end of the world: the return of Morgoth, the last battle, and what happens after (trying to be as non-spoilery as possibl...

Medieval Times Dinner and Tournament is a family dinner theater featuring staged medieval-style games, sword-fighting, and jousting. Medieval Times Entertainment, the holding company, is headquartered in Irving, Texas.There are ten locations: the nine in the United States are built as replica 11th-century castles; the tenth, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, is located inside the CNE Government Building. == History == The first two Medieval Times-styled shows were developed in the late 1960s by Jose Montaner in Spain at Majorca and Benidorm. Montaner converted the barbecue restaurant on the family...

6

A: Second prophecy of Mandos

I looked at my "History of Middle-earth" books, and found this in "The Lost Road", Conclusion §§30-33: §31 Thus spake Mandos in prophecy, when the Gods sat in judgement in Valinor, and the rumour of his words was whispered among all the Elves of the West. When the world is old and the Powers g...

1:44 AM

Also very Abrahamic.

Though I believe other religions from the regions have something similar.

Mahabharata has some good alternative stories

> §32 Thereafter shall Earth be broken and re-made, and the Silmarils shall be recovered out of Air and Earth and Sea; for Eärendil shall descend and surrender that flame which he hath had in keeping.

Then Fëanor shall take the Three Jewels and bear them to Yavanna Palúrien; and she will break them and with their fire rekindle the Two Trees, and a great light shall come forth. And the mountains of Valinor shall be levelled, so that the light shall go out over all the world. In that light the Gods will grow young again, and the Elves awake and all their dead arise, and the purpose of Illúva…

This was all very old. Notice "hath". CJRT did not include it in the Silmarillion because it was not clear how to fit it in, whether it had been abandoned.

Yeah, bleh.

> Second Music of the Ainur is the great music the Ainur will make together with the Children of Ilúvatar before Ilúvatar after the End, during which Arda will be rebuilt. The history of Arda is but a learning process towards it.

It will be more splendid than the first Music of the Ainur as the Children will participate, and every participant will fully understand their intent in their part and be in harmony with the others. Ilúvatar will give to them the Secret Fire and his themes shall take Being at the same time they are uttered.

THere's a hobbit subplot and some subplot with an elf helping some people that I'm pretty sure aren't 'canon' (until now)

1:49 AM

> Yet of old the Valar declared to the Elves in Valinor that Men shall join in the Second Music of the Ainur; whereas Ilúvatar has not revealed what he purposes for the Elves after the World's end, and Melkor has not discovered it.

@Cerberus He wrote these earliest of legends in a super archaic fashion when he was in his teens and twenties. He stopped doing that. Compare the earliest versions of the coming of Tuor to Gondolin with what you read in Unfinished Tales.

@Mitch Are those two subplots the ones you don't like? Or are there others/more thah you don't like?

@Mitch Well, having a nelf help people is ok.

@tchrist I know.

There's a lot of breathing space in the Second Age. So little was written of it that you can write things without invaliding what has been written on it.

Yeah, and, if well done, I would not be against that.

1:56 AM

:62082580

@Cerberus they're ok

Hobbits are comic relief as usual

> Get out, you old Wight! Vanish in the sunlight!
Shrivel like the cold mist, like the winds go wailing,
Out into the barren lands far beyond the mountains!
Come never here again! Leave your barrow empty!
Lost and forgotten be, darker than the darkness,
Where gates stand for ever shut, till the world is mended.

@Mitch It isn't just that. Hobbits are there because they are relatable.

They're the little people of the world, not the great. So the rest of us little people can better relate to them than we can to Homeric heroes.

I always imagined that 'men' were supposed to be the relatable ones.

Sort of just by name

@Mitch Hmm I do not like that.

I don't know that I would say they're "comic relief".

Even thought it seems like hobbits would be the ones you'd want to hang out eith

1:59 AM

But I don't have time for Northrup Fry right now.

@tchrist Morgoth?

@tchrist Yeah I never really quite got that.

@tchrist that's the vibe I'm getting from the show

But I'm sure that's the idea, as you say.

@Cerberus That's when Tom rescued the hobbits from the barrow wight, and Merry acquired the blade whose spells would unravel the Witch-king.

They aren't entirely comic but the only lightheartedness is in their scenes

Ok also with the dwarves

Because shirt people are funny?

2:01 AM

@tchrist Ah, I see.

Was that near Weathertop? I have forgotten.

I think I only ever read the first part of the book once.

The second time, I would probably start later, near Rivendell.

Or I don't remember, it's been so long.

@Cerberus No, earlier.

@Mitch Hmm that's why I usually dislike dwarves, in other authors.

Fog on the Barrow Downs.

@tchrist Oh, was it before they had met you?

No, after.

2:03 AM

Oh.

And what was this wight anyway, do we know?

Book I, Chapter 8.

A creature of Sauron?

And, gosh, I do not remember the blade at all.

Undead spirits.

Barrow-wights are wraith-like creatures in J. R. R. Tolkien's world of Middle-earth. In The Lord of the Rings, the four hobbits are trapped by a barrow-wight, and are lucky to escape with their lives; but they gain ancient swords of Westernesse for their quest. Tolkien derived the idea of barrow-wights from Norse mythology, where heroes of several Sagas battle undead beings known as draugrs. Scholars have noted a resemblance, too, between the breaking of the barrow-wight's spell and the final battle in Beowulf, where the dragon's barrow is entered and the treasure released from its spell. Barrow...

> And still Meriadoc the hobbit stood there blinking through his tears and no one spoke to him, indeed none seemed to heed him. He brushed away the tears, and stooped to pick up the
green shield that Éowyn had given him; and he slung it at his back. Then he looked for his sword that he had let fall; for even as he struck his blow his arm was numbed, and now
he could only use his left hand. And behold! there lay his weapon, but the blade was smoking like a dry branch that has been thrust in a fire; and as he watched it, it writhed and

So passed the sword of the Barrow-downs, work of Westernesse.

> Out of the wreck rose the Black Rider, tall and threatening, towering above her. With a cry of hatred that stung the very ears like venom he let fall his mace. Her shield was shivered in many pieces, and her arm was broken; she stumbled to her knees. He bent over her like a cloud, and his eyes glittered; he raised his mace to kill.

But suddenly he too stumbled forward with a cry of bitter pain, and his stroke went wide, driving into the ground. Merry’s sword had stabbed him from behind, shearing through the black mantle, and passing up beneath the hauberk had pierced the sinew behind his…

It was specifically made to combat the forces of Angmar that overran Arnor, and caused its fall.

> Evil spirits were sent to the Barrow-downs by the Witch-king of Angmar to prevent the restoration of the destroyed Dúnedain kingdom of Cardolan...

If you read the Wikipedia article, you'll see that other authors had used barrow-wights in the 19th century.

2:11 AM

I saw it.

Tolkien: "So passed the sword of the Barrow-downs, work of Westernesse. But glad would he have been to know its fate who wrought it slowly long ago in the North-kingdom when the Dúnedain were young, and chief among their foes was the dread realm of Angmar and its sorcerer king. No other blade, not though mightier hands had wielded it, would have dealt that foe a wound so bitter, cleaving the undead flesh, breaking the spell that knit his unseen sinews to his will." — Cerberus_Reinstate_Monica 23 secs ago

Your quotation is relevant to so many things.

2:26 AM

> In later years, the Silvan Elves of Mirkwood and Lothlórien were descended from the Nandor (but most of their lords were not)...

Interesting.

Of course Galadriel.

Descended? If elves don't die then they're gonna have a population explosion

Like rabbits

Except very, very slowly breeding rabbits who are hunted not seldom by Morgoth and Sauron.

user image

1 hour later…

4:01 AM

Evgeny Popov is one tough customer.

4:29 AM

Dimorphos is a small satellite of an asteroid that was discovered in 2003. It is the minor-planet moon of a synchronous binary system with 65803 Didymos as the primary asteroid. After being provisionally designated as S/2003 (65803) 1 with informal nicknames such as "Didymos B" and "Didymoon", the Working Group Small Body Nomenclature (WGSBN) of the International Astronomical Union gave the satellite its official name on 23 June 2020. At a diameter of 170 metres (560 ft), it is one of the smallest astronomical objects that has been given a permanent name.Dimorphos was the target of NASA's Double...

Double Asteroid Redirection Test

Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) was a NASA space mission aimed at testing a method of planetary defense against near-Earth objects (NEOs). Launched from Earth in November 2021, the probe crashed into the minor-planet moon Dimorphos of the double asteroid Didymos 10 months later to assess the future potential of a spacecraft impact to deflect an asteroid on a collision course with Earth through a transference of momentum. The asteroid selected for the test poses no actual threat to Earth. DART is a joint project between NASA and the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL). The project...

Interesting.

We'll see.

2 hours later…

6:36 AM

@tchrist That's a good scene. It's a while since I saw the film, but as I recall it doesn't do it justice. But perhaps nobody could.

As I recall Westernesse was Aragorn's ancestors.

7:33 AM

Wordle 465 5/6

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🟩⬜⬜⬜🟩
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#Worldle #249 3/6 (100%)
🟩🟩🟩🟨⬜⬇️
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟨➡️
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🎉
https://worldle.teuteuf.fr

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Sep '2227

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