I'm curious

[serai]

Why do so many hobbit fic writers insist on using the Scottish word bairn, when Tolkien himself said that hobbit babies and children are called fauntlings or faunts? I can see digging up a word if he had never addressed the issue. (Though I'd try to find an English word, or at least one derived from the same sources, rather than something Scots. From what I understand, Tolkien didn't like Scots or Gaelic, just like he didn't like French, and took great care not even to use words that English had appropriated from them.) But in this case, he actually had a word, told us what it was, and people still don't use it.

Can someone explain this? Because it makes no sense to me at all.

Comments

[serai1.livejournal.com]

That's what I would have thought, but I've seen this mistake made by writers who know the canon inside and out, so it's not the movie's fault. It's weird. I mean, I'm certainly not a canon expert, but even I knew that.

Ahahaha! Well, I gave up on them a long time ago. Ridiculous place. Are the posters there still as pissy and self-righteous as ever? Though NZS always seemed decent to me. And did you attempt to correct him on his incorrect usage?

[serai1.livejournal.com]

Well, you've always been more tolerant than I in that respect. When a writer does something like use "mathom" incorrectly, it really takes her down in my estimation. Just like all the rampant grammatical butchering that goes on in English these days - folks might be happy doing it, but they still come off either lazy or unintelligent to me.

[serai1.livejournal.com]

Ain't he cute? *pinches his little hobbit cheeks*

You know, I love editing, I really do. Examining words and judging their weights and rhythms, working to tweak and arrange and clean them up just fascinates me. But I find being a beta too damn frustrating, frankly. To do all that work and then have someone basically say "Thanks but I'm gonna keep it wrong" - I can't take it. If I'm going to be an editor, then I want my work and/or expertise (what little I've got) to be accepted as it is. Otherwise, what's the bloody point of asking me to do the corrections? It's a waste of my time, and I don't have that much left, thanks.

[elycia.livejournal.com]

Tolkien did use the word "bairn" in at least one instance. Elanor and Fastred's children eventually are known by the family name of "Fairbairn." In one place--HoME, perhaps?--he says it's because the children are exceptionally attractive, though the name might also be an outgrowth of Elanor's being known throughout the Shire as "The Fair."

That is why I, at least, don't feel terribly uncomfortable using the word "bairn" in fanfic, especially if a hobbit is the one saying it. You can only use "lad" or "lass" so many times in a paragraph before it starts getting really old. :-)

[serai1.livejournal.com]

What makes "bairn" preferable to "baby", then? "Baby" and "child" are perfectly good English words, so why throw them over in favor of a word that isn't English? If there were no word in English for the concept, I could see using "bairn", but there's no reason to do it. I think it's the use of "bairn" in narration that irks me, not in the hobbits' mouths.

That's it, there. I just did a search of LOTR and found that other than that one name, hobbits don't use "bairn", certainly not the way hobbit writers use it, as a substitute for both "baby" and "child". He uses "child" or "maidchild" (for girls), and the use of "bairn" for "child" also makes me scratch my head.

It's been an enduring frustration for me when the folks writing these stories, which are based in a world created by a guy obsessed with language, use words in such a careless manner, or decide that the words he invented are either unimportant enough to be ignored or that it's okay to redefine them because...they just feel like it? No, thanks.

[elenya54.livejournal.com]

The fact I don't use "faunt" in my fics is deliberate. I don't like the word. Tolkien has translated the Red Book as he sees fit. I've decided on a different translation ;) :D I use hobbit-lad/hobbit-lass and hobbitling.

However, you might feel more comfortable about "bairn" if I point out it derives from an Old English word, bearn - beran, to bear.

[annwyn55.livejournal.com]

LOL. I thought that I was the only one who disliked that word. I prefer "youngling" or "hobbitling" - easier on the "ear". And as Elanor says, I'm sure that the hobbits had more than one word for "child" anyway.

[serai1.livejournal.com]

Oh man. "Youngling" and "hobbitling" sound much clumsier to me, like the conflations that a lot of writer create around the word "hobbit" (meaning things like "workhobbit" and "firehobbit"). To my ear, all these things sound like writers twisting themselves around not to use certain words. If the word "fauntling" doesn't suit, why not just say "child" or "baby"? I don't think I ever saw "youngling" before I started reading hobbit fic, and I've read a lot over the years, and I certainly never came across "hobbitling" before.

My dissatisfaction with "hobbitling" comes from my not believing that hobbits would obsess on the word "hobbit" so much. Do men call their babies "humanlings"? No, they don't. They're just babies. If Tolkien had never said anything on the matter, I'd just use that word as well. And I don't use it in narration, unless the narrator is a hobbit himself.

Oh, whatever. This being my opinion, I ought to have kept it to myself.

[elenya54.livejournal.com]

Oh, whatever. This being my opinion, I ought to have kept it to myself.

I don't see why. It makes for an interesting discussion. :)

Isn't "youngling" used in the third of the Star Wars prequels? I have to admit that I don't like that one - probably because of that connection. We all have our likes and dislikes, and it's bound to translate through to our writing, but I can't see the problem with expressing them. Like you, I've given up on "Mathom" being used correctly in the fandom. It has almost reached the stage of having acquired a new meaning through repeated misusage. It wasn't until I read Dickens in my teen years that I realised how the word "cute" had been misinterpreted and reinvented to mean "sweet". In Dickens it's written as 'cute, short for acute, meaning clever, so a cute child is strictly speaking a precociously clever one. Such is the English language.

I love the origins of words, hence I own an etymological dictionary and can come up with OE origins for "bairn" :D

[serai1.livejournal.com]

Hey, if "youngling" came up in a Lucas script, then that's enough reason right there NEVER to use it, at least for me. That man has to be one of the worst writers I've ever come across. His writing is so stilted, so self-conscious, so bloody WOODEN, that I nearly can't stand to listen to it. (I think the first two SW films are the only ones he wrote that I can stand to watch, and I certainly have never seen Phantom Menace.)

Hee! I like that about "cute". Like the word "nice", whose original meaning I much prefer to the modern one. Yeah, words do get mutilated over time, and I certainly understand that, although I'm not going to encourage it. But I'm always puzzled by these habits in a fandom based on a book by a philology professor, a guy so obsessed with his love of English that he wouldn't even use any English words that were obviously foreign in origin. (Thanks to T. Shippey for pointing that out to me! I'd never noticed it before, but he's right, and it does have a definite effect on the book's sound and feel.) A lady hobbit wouldn't carry a bouquet, she'd carry a posey, for instance. That's the kind of attention to detail he exhibits, and while I wouldn't expect his kind of extremity on the part of fans, we're also not writing thousand-page books. Just short stories, and some of them really damn short.

[trilliah.livejournal.com]

Ah, amelioration, pejoration...my History of the English Language class comes to use at last.

My main issue with Lucas (apart from the fact that he crams too many special effects into not enough plot) is his utter inability to write real romance. Han and Leia are great until they ADMIT to liking one another--then they get ridiculous. ("Who are you?" "Someone who love you." *squirm*)

In case you're wondering why I'm suddenly commenting on this thread: I missed it before, and your latest post made me curious enough to check it out. I'm not sure why you think you've offended folks--most I can see is interesting discussion--but I would say if you're not wanting debate, don't pose linguistic questions. Fandom's weird about those. ;)

I need a covering-up-my-ears-and-screaming icon for subjects like this...

[serai1.livejournal.com]

Romance? The guy can't even write passable dialogue. ("You are like sand"...ARRRGHGHGHKILLKILLKILL) It's incredibly telling that in Empire (for my money, the best of the SW films) the only really good line, one that is both funny and just an on-the-mark summing up of a whole character, which is Han's response to Leia's "I love you" - "I know" - is a friggin' improvisation on Harrison Ford's part! He objected to Han saying "I love you too", since DUH! Han would never, ever say that. And that line sums up everything that's wrong with Lucas's writing: clumsy, amateurish, one-dimensional, uninsightful, etc., etc., etc. The guy just sucks. Props once again to Mr. Ford for uttering the immortal actor's lament, "George, you can write this shit, but you can't say it."

As to the other...I got responses other than here. *sigh*

Re: I need a covering-up-my-ears-and-screaming icon for subjects like this...

[trilliah.livejournal.com]

*dies* That's awesome!!! Oy, Han saying "I love you too?" OMFG thank you LORD for sparing us THAT nonsense. And yes: Empire Strikes Back has ALWAYS been my favorite. New Hope just doesn't GO anywhere, and Jedi's Luke is a bit too obnoxious for me. I don't even think the newer ones bear mentioning.

Eep. I'm sorry to hear that. :(

[wyna-hiros.livejournal.com]

Yes, I believe "youngling" was used in the Prequels at some point.

[trilliah.livejournal.com]

Yeah; it's one of the ranks of Jedi. Youngling, apprentice, master. Something like that.

[trilliah.livejournal.com]

My dissatisfaction with "hobbitling" comes from my not believing that hobbits would obsess on the word "hobbit" so much.

Ooh, I'll jump in and second that. I read fics where someone comments on Sam's "nice round hobbit belly" or "pert hobbit nose" or Frodo's "un-hobbitlike complexion" and I think "Why don't they just say "nice round belly, pert nose, and unusual complexion?" After all, it's not like we'd sit here and say "What a nice human nose you have!" And even though there ARE other races in ME, hobbits have sort of made it a point to avoid much interaction with them, suggesting a sort of racial-centrism that would probably not need to specify on things like that.

As for bairn, I don't use it for two reasons: one, I tend to write slash and it's best if there are no underage folk involved, and two, I don't know how to pronounce it, and that bothers me a bit. ;)

[serai1.livejournal.com]

suggesting a sort of racial-centrism

I think it would go beyond centrism to be actual ignorance of other races at all. Hobbits are aware of other races, but besides men, most hobbits (especially those far from the borders) probably wouldn't know enough about what elves look like to be able to compare them with hobbits. And even if they did, they still wouldn't append "hobbit" that way, because the use would be obvious. Elves and dwarves and such may exist somewhere in the world, but it's pointless to make a distinction between them and hobbits when, for most hobbits, it's so spectacularly unlikely that anyone in the Shire could ever be mistaken for one. No elf's foot on earth was ever covered in hair, for instance.

[elanorgardner.livejournal.com]

Actually, faunt and fauntling never appear in LotR itself, while bairn does, as elycia points out, show up in both Fellowship of the Ring and the Appendices in reference to Elanor the Fair and the "Fairbairns of the Towers", so, if Tolkien did dislike Scots, he sorta slipped up there. I know faunt is in Letter #214. I don't know if fauntling shows up elsewhere in the Letters. I have seen them used and discussed and it sounded like they were in the same Letter used in the whole age discussion around hobbits. I use both, although I started out using bairn when hobbits referred to human or other babes besides hobbit, then I just used them somewhat interchangeably, mostly because, as in English, I thought hobbits likely to use words somewhat sloppily -- as we can use baby, babe, toddler, child to mean a human of the same age. Same thing with mathom. I believe Tolkien even talks about this in the Letters. The fact that those of lower class often gave gifts that belonged to them or they created or grew and that they referred to them differently than a formal "present". Again, I felt, and I even discussed this with someone at the time, that the language, like English, would be fluid and not rigid. Hobbits would misuse and find new uses for words, just as we do, and mathom could be used to refer to a present that someone might be trying to indicate is "less worthy" than a new gift. Trust me, etymology is SUCH a touchy subject I am reluctant to get into discussions about it because people get so very passionate about issues. I guess that is a good thing for the language, eh? I remember getting into a long discussion with a professor about "because" versus "due to" and about usage and when usage drives etymology to change. Eck!! He really got bent about it. But obviously I am a liberal in many things, not just politics, and I play far too fast and loose with the "rules". And I am sure I do come off as either lazy or unintelligent at times, but I love playing with the language and sometimes that means dancing on the edge (and sometimes it means falling right off!!! LOL)

[serai1.livejournal.com]

Well, no, you don't come off lazy or unintelligent, since you don't go around butchering grammar and using netspeak when you post. Those are the people I was talking about. (If you look at my comment again, you'll see what I mean.)

And the whole subject of language changing over time - well, sure it does. But the scope of the stories we're talking about usually span over the same 50-year period, more or less. Seeing that hobbits are members of a rural culture that moves at a MUCH slower pace than ours, there's precious little change the language is going to go through in that amount of time. And hobbits are especially not given to change, and suspicious of anything they haven't already known about for a couple of centuries, so I don't see changes occurring in their language that quickly.

The use of the word "bairn" in ROTK struck me as a slipup as well, since it goes against the thrust of Tolkien's writing. That's why I don't use it, and find it irksome when I see it. Guess I thought other writers would see it the same way, especially those that have read tons of Tolkien. If you've only read the novel, then I could see it. (Though why go out of one's way to use a Scots word when there's a perfectly good English word - baby - and no reason not to use it, I don't know.) But if you've read the Letters, where Tolkien actually specified it?

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

Bairn from fairbairn, as some folks have pointed out, although I do use faunt because I have read some of the letters. (Certainly not all of them!) And when I use "faunt" I'm careful to mean very young child at that. But I wouldn't hesitate to use tot or toddler or baby or infant if I felt it fit better in the narrative.

As for mathom, I'm curious about the two definitions you refer to? I tend to use it to mean a gift which is primarily important because it is a gift, although the item in question has no inherent usefulness to most people. Kind of like "white elephant" or "kitsch" or "dust-catcher". You'd never buy a mathom for yourself. It had to arrive in the ribbons and paper that made it acceptable. If I say I'm giving someone a mathom it's very similar to saying I'm giving them a "small token of my affection", rather than that I'm dumping something useless into their lap. The whole point is the wrapping, and if the recipient gets more joy from the object in question than I expected, why marvelous!

[serai1.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's the way I use "mathom" as well, because that's the way Tolkien used it. But a lot of Tolkien fans now use it to mean any kind of gift, even one of value, and that makes me a little nuts, frankly.

Your use of "faunt" is the same as mine, and I wouldn't hesitate to say "child" or "baby" either. In fact, I've used the word "faunt" in my writing only when a hobbit is talking, either in dialogue or in the narrative. If the voice was not a hobbit's (like, say, mine when the narrator is neutral), then I'd use "baby".

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

It occurs to me that perhaps "bairn" is a regionalism from the northern parts of the Shire. Considering how very many dialects and regional terms have been identified on one very small island for English in general, I can certainly see words being used differently in say Buckland than Hobbiton. And even stranger usages in Bree!

[serai1.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I could see that, maybe. But it's the use of "bairn" in the narration that I don't get at all. If the narrator isn't a hobbit (neutral voice) what's the point of using a word that would only be used by a hobbit (if hobbits use it)? In fact, it takes the hobbity sound out of the word. If a writer wants to make clear that an odd-sounding word is being used because the people she's writing about use it, then the word should only be used by those characters, not by a narrator who presumbly isn't one of them.

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Depends on how close the focus on one of the characters is, I suppose. Lately I've tended to write third person close focus, and that sort of narrative lends itself to using some terms which would occur to the object of the focus, if that makes any sense at all.

But... of course... depends is a powerful exception!