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]

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!