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

[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.