*Minecraft villager noise*

1.5M ratings
277k ratings

See, that’s what the app is perfect for.

Sounds perfect Wahhhh, I don’t wanna
egg2k16
noctumsolis

When I think about American attitudes to parenting there's something that always comes to mind, but I don't know whether it's a real thing. All my life in American films and TV I've heard child characters addressing their dads as "sir" or being told off for not doing so.

Is that really a commonplace thing in American families, or is it just a shorthand way of showing that the character is a shitty dad?

calling dads sir, in the US

It's real and I've seen it first hand

I it's how I was raised

shitty-dad shorthand

it's real outside the US

Vanilla extract

i think it was mainly a thing the generation before mine so boomers to gen x kids
wispythreads
mirkwoodest

One of the ballsiest things Tolkien ever did was write 473k words about some hobbits called frodo, sam, merry, and pippin and then write in the appendices that their names are actually maura, ban, kali, and razal. 

mirkwoodest

This just in: Eowyn and Eomer’s names actually start with the letter “L.” [source for other nerds

mirkwoodest

#wait so they have hobbitish names and common names?

No, they have Westron names and English names.

What you’ve got to understand is that everything Tolkien wrote was him pretending to merely translate ancient documents. He was writing as if the Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings had actually been written by Bilbo, Frodo, and Sam (or Bilba, Maura, and Ban) and he was just some random contemporary academic translating it all into English for us. 

There are many languages in his books, but generally speaking, everything written in English in the books is a translation of the language “Westron.” Therefore any names that come from Westron, he translated. Names coming from other languages, like Sindarin, he left as they were. Why? IDK. Maybe because the stories are from a hobbit perspective and hobbits speak Westron, so he wanted the Westron parts to sound familiar and the other languages/names to remain foreign? 

“But Mirkwoodest!” you cry, “The word ‘hobbit’ isn’t an English word! And the names Bilbo Baggins, Frodo Baggins, Samwise Gamgee, Peregrin Took, and Meriadoc Brandybuck” all sounds super weird and not like English at all!”

Psych! They are in English! (Or Old English, German, or Norse.) Once again you underestimate what a nerd Tolkien was. Let me break it down: 

In Westron, hobbits are actually called “kuduk,” which means “hole-dweller,” so for an English translation, Tolkien called them “hobbits” which is a modernization of the Old English word “holbytla” which comes from “Hol” (hole) and “Bytla”(builder)

“Maura” is a Westron name which means “Wise.” Weirdly enough, “Frodo” is an actual Proto-Germanic name that actual people used to have and it means the same thing. 

“Banazîr” is Westron for “half-wise, or simple.” In Proto Germanic, the prefix “Sam” means half, and wise is obviously a word we still use. 

“Razanur” means “Traveler” or “Stranger” which is also the meaning of the word “Peregrin(e)” This one is a twofer because  “Razar” means “a small red apple” and in English so does “Pippin.”

“Kalimac” apparently is a meaningless name in Westron, but the shortened form “Kali” means “happy,” so Jirt decided his nickname would be “Merry” and chose the really obscure ancient Celtic name “Meriodoc” to match. 

Jirt chose to leave “Bilba” almost exactly the same in English, but he changed the ending to an “O” because in Westron names ending in “a” are masculine. 

I’m not going to go on and talk about the last names but those all have special meanings too (except Tûk, which is too iconic to change more than the spelling of, apparently). 

The Rohirrim were also Westron speakers first and foremost, so their names are also “translations” into Old English and Proto-Germanic words, i.e. “Eowyn”  is a combination of “Eoh” (horse) and “Wynn” (joy/bliss)

“Rohirrim/Rohan” are Sindarin words, but in the books, they call themselves the “Éothéod” which is an Old English/Norse combo that means “horse people.” Tolkien tells us in the “Peoples of Middle Earth” that the actual Westron for “Éothéod” is Lohtûr, which means that Eowyn and Eomer’s names, which come from the same root word, must also start with the letter L. 

The names of all the elves, dwarves, Dunedain, and men from Gondor are not English translations, since they come from root words other than Westron. 

The takeaway from this is that when a guy whose first real job was researching the history and etymology of words of Germanic origin beginning with the letter “W” writes a book, you can expect this kind of tomfoolery.

Notes: Sorry I said “Razal” instead of “Razar” in my original post I’m a fraud. 

Further Reading: 

Rohirric , Westron 

crafty-loner
tethered-heartstrings

image
thedeepweb

i went to recreate it on the sims

image

the floorplan

image

exterior

image

realized i forgot to screenshot the other side of the room but you get the idea. not a participant of the tradition so i hope its accurate to what one would expect of the babygirlfying of old men room

image
image
image

right behind it is the kitchen, with all the utilities needed for a fast, quick meal made from scratch, dark colored for convience 😍

image

the abortion room, self explanatory

image
image
image

the vampire lounge, complete with a set of glasses but only murky red wines to drink

image

world's smallest recreation of the saw bathroom, and the autism room. it doesn't have windows on the floorplan so i took that as a soundproof room to relax in, or to blast the music as loud as you need. it can be redecorated up to the individual's taste. same does not apply to the saw bathroom

image
image

and outside, the werewolf transformation patio with all your werewolf will need for a successful night, and the hrt tea/cocktail garden