The Ring of Words: Tolkien and the Oxford English Dictionary

peter gilliver jeremy marshall edmund weiner

Tolkien's first job, on returning home from World War I, was as an assistant on the staff of the OED . He later said that he had "learned more in those two years than in any other equal part of his life." The Ring of Words reveals how his professional work on the Oxford English Dictionary
influenced Tolkien's creative use of language in his fictional world.
Here three senior editors of the OED offer an intriguing exploration of Tolkien's career as a lexicographer and illuminate his creativity as a word user and word creator. The centerpiece of the book is a wonderful collection of "word studies" which will delight the heart of Ring fans and word
lovers everywhere. The editors look at the origin of such Tolkienesque words as "hobbit," "mithril, "Smeagol," "Ent," "halfling," and "worm" (meaning "dragon"). Readers discover that a word such as "mathom" (anything a hobbit had no immediate use for, but was unwilling to throw away) was actually
common in Old English, but that "Mithril," on the other hand, is a complete invention (and the first "Elven" word to have an entry in the OED). And fans of Harry Potter will be surprised to find that "Dumbledore" (the name of Hogwart's headmaster) was a word used by Tolkien and many others (it is a
dialect word meaning "bumblebee").
Few novelists have found so much of their creative inspiration in the shapes and histories of words. Presenting archival material not found anywhere else, The Ring of Words offers a fresh and unexplored angle on the literary achievements of one of the world's most famous and best-loved
writers.

Genres nonfictionlanguagebiographylinguisticshistoryreferencebooks about booksliteraturewritingliterary criticism

234 pages, Hardcover

First published April 27,2006

Literary awards

mythopoeic scholarship award,

This edition

Format: 234 pages, Hardcover
Published: January 1, 2006 by Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780198610694
ASIN: 0198610696
Language: English

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J.r.r. Tolkien

J.R.R. Tolkien

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien: writer, artist, scholar, linguist. Known to millions around the world as the author of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien spent most of his life teaching at the University of Oxford where he was a distinguished academic in the field...