Odo Proudfoot was wrong

[Steve Morrison]

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=39444

Apparently, the plural really should be “Proudfoots” rather than
“Proudfeet”! So, now that we’ve solved that one—has anyone analyzed
Bilbo’s “half of you half as well” remark to determine whether or
not it /did/ come out to a compliment?

[Stan Brown]

Post by Steve Morrison
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=39444
Apparently, the plural really should be ?Proudfoots? rather than
?Proudfeet?! So, now that we?ve solved that one?

Right -- the normal way to form the plural of any proper name is to
use the _regular_ -s or -es ending. One Jones, two Jones; one
Johnson, two Johnsons; one Oldman, two Oldmans, one Foot, two Foots.

Tolkien as narrator gives the correct plural, just before Bilbo's
interchange with Odo(*): "There were many Bagginses and Boffins, and
also many Tooks and Brandybucks; there were various Grubbs (relations
of Bilbo Baggins' grandmother), and various Chubbs (connexions of his
Took grandfather); and a selection of Burrowses, Bolgers,
Bracegirdles, Brockhouses, Goodbodies, Hornblowers and Proudfoots."

I can't remember if Tolkien ever told us the original Westron for
"Proudfoot", and I don't think he ever told us the rules for making
plurals of anything in Westron, let alone proper names. So Odo(*) may
well have been correct in Westron, even though Bilbo was correct in
English.

(*) It was probably Odo who interrupted Bilbo by shouting
"ProudFEET". The text says only "an elderly hobbit", and mentions his
feet on the table. A couple of paragraphs later, "old Odo
Proudfoot" is mentioned as removing his feet from the table. It would
be a bit of a coincidence if there were _two_ elderly male Proudfoots
in a company of only 144 hobbits, given the many surnames Tolkien had
listed among the guests.

Post by Steve Morrison
has anyone analyzed
Bilbo?s ?half of you half as well? remark to determine whether or
not it /did/ come out to a compliment?

"I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like
less than half of you half as well as you deserve."

I think Tolkien may have been having fun with his countrymen -- it
seems to be a thing among some speakers of English English to tie
their thought up in knots this way.

Translated into American, the first part is straightforward: "I wish
I knew most of you much better." The second part is actually a
statement about Bilbo's admittedly flawed evaluation of his
neighbors: "I should like most of you much better than I do." The
most charitable interpretation I can give of that is that Bilbo is
saying he realizes he's standoffish by nature, wishes it weren't
true, and believes he has missed out on some good friendships through
being standoffish. The only problem with that interpretation is that
I can't imagine an Englishman of Tolkien's time ever expressing such
a thought out loud, even in Biblo's convoluted fashion!

So the first part is unquestionably a compliment; the second is a
compliment in form but not in effect. Why does Bilbo hold a lower
opinion of them than they merit?

[John W Kennedy]

Post by Stan Brown

Post by Steve Morrison
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=39444
Apparently, the plural really should be ?Proudfoots? rather than
?Proudfeet?! So, now that we?ve solved that one?

Right -- the normal way to form the plural of any proper name is to
use the _regular_ -s or -es ending. One Jones, two Jones; one
Johnson, two Johnsons; one Oldman, two Oldmans, one Foot, two Foots.
Tolkien as narrator gives the correct plural, just before Bilbo's
interchange with Odo(*): "There were many Bagginses and Boffins, and
also many Tooks and Brandybucks; there were various Grubbs (relations
of Bilbo Baggins' grandmother), and various Chubbs (connexions of his
Took grandfather); and a selection of Burrowses, Bolgers,
Bracegirdles, Brockhouses, Goodbodies, Hornblowers and Proudfoots."
I can't remember if Tolkien ever told us the original Westron for
"Proudfoot", and I don't think he ever told us the rules for making
plurals of anything in Westron, let alone proper names. So Odo(*) may
well have been correct in Westron, even though Bilbo was correct in
English.
(*) It was probably Odo who interrupted Bilbo by shouting
"ProudFEET". The text says only "an elderly hobbit", and mentions his
feet on the table. A couple of paragraphs later, "old Odo
Proudfoot" is mentioned as removing his feet from the table. It would
be a bit of a coincidence if there were _two_ elderly male Proudfoots
in a company of only 144 hobbits, given the many surnames Tolkien had
listed among the guests.

Details are usually left to the family. Some people named “Theobald”
pronounce it to rhyme with “ribald”; others do not. Some people named
“Hathaway” pronounce it “Hate-away” (Mrs. Shakespeare apparently did);
others do not.

Post by Stan Brown

Post by Steve Morrison
has anyone analyzed
Bilbo?s ?half of you half as well? remark to determine whether or
not it /did/ come out to a compliment?

"I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like
less than half of you half as well as you deserve."
I think Tolkien may have been having fun with his countrymen -- it
seems to be a thing among some speakers of English English to tie
their thought up in knots this way.
Translated into American, the first part is straightforward: "I wish
I knew most of you much better." The second part is actually a
statement about Bilbo's admittedly flawed evaluation of his
neighbors: "I should like most of you much better than I do." The
most charitable interpretation I can give of that is that Bilbo is
saying he realizes he's standoffish by nature, wishes it weren't
true, and believes he has missed out on some good friendships through
being standoffish. The only problem with that interpretation is that
I can't imagine an Englishman of Tolkien's time ever expressing such
a thought out loud, even in Biblo's convoluted fashion!

Tolkien was an Englishman of Tolkien’s time.

Post by Stan Brown
So the first part is unquestionably a compliment; the second is a
compliment in form but not in effect. Why does Bilbo hold a lower
opinion of them than they merit?

Because he is not Saint Bilbo.

[Steuard Jensen]

Post by Stan Brown

has anyone analyzed Bilbo?s ?half of you half as well? remark to
determine whether or not it /did/ come out to a compliment?

I was very relieved that my 7-year-old daughter didn't ask me to
explain this one when I read it to her for the first time last
week. :)

Post by Stan Brown
"I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like
less than half of you half as well as you deserve."
Translated into American, the first part is straightforward: "I wish
I knew most of you much better."

I agree entirely.

Post by Stan Brown
The second part is actually a statement about Bilbo's admittedly
flawed evaluation of his neighbors: "I should like most of you much
better than I do."

I don't think I quite agree with this reading, though. I read it more
as "I like most of you the proper amount, but there's some minority of
you (between 0% and 49%) whom I ought to have liked much better." That
is, he knows that he's been unfair to *some* of his relations, but he
feels okay about how he's related to most of them.

So is that second half of the phrase a compliment? I think rather that
it's an apology, one that's broad enough for anyone who's felt
slighted by him to hope that it was meant for them, but ambiguous
enough to leave room for Bilbo having genuinely loathed some of the
guests without intending any apology to them at all. (After all, I
rather suspect that he categorized his dislike for the
Sackville-Bagginses as being exactly what they deserved.)

Steuard "What do you mean, where have you been?" Jensen

[利根川 幸雄]

Post by Stan Brown

Post by Steve Morrison
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=39444
Apparently, the plural really should be ?Proudfoots? rather than
?Proudfeet?! So, now that we?ve solved that one?

Right -- the normal way to form the plural of any proper name is to
use the _regular_ -s or -es ending. One Jones, two Jones; one
Johnson, two Johnsons; one Oldman, two Oldmans, one Foot, two Foots.
Tolkien as narrator gives the correct plural, just before Bilbo's
interchange with Odo(*): "There were many Bagginses and Boffins, and
also many Tooks and Brandybucks; there were various Grubbs (relations
of Bilbo Baggins' grandmother), and various Chubbs (connexions of his
Took grandfather); and a selection of Burrowses, Bolgers,
Bracegirdles, Brockhouses, Goodbodies, Hornblowers and Proudfoots."
I can't remember if Tolkien ever told us the original Westron for
"Proudfoot", and I don't think he ever told us the rules for making
plurals of anything in Westron, let alone proper names. So Odo(*) may
well have been correct in Westron, even though Bilbo was correct in
English.
(*) It was probably Odo who interrupted Bilbo by shouting
"ProudFEET". The text says only "an elderly hobbit", and mentions his
feet on the table. A couple of paragraphs later, "old Odo
Proudfoot" is mentioned as removing his feet from the table. It would
be a bit of a coincidence if there were _two_ elderly male Proudfoots
in a company of only 144 hobbits, given the many surnames Tolkien had
listed among the guests.

Post by Steve Morrison
has anyone analyzed
Bilbo?s ?half of you half as well? remark to determine whether or
not it /did/ come out to a compliment?

"I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like
less than half of you half as well as you deserve."
I think Tolkien may have been having fun with his countrymen -- it
seems to be a thing among some speakers of English English to tie
their thought up in knots this way.
Translated into American, the first part is straightforward: "I wish
I knew most of you much better." The second part is actually a
statement about Bilbo's admittedly flawed evaluation of his
neighbors: "I should like most of you much better than I do." The
most charitable interpretation I can give of that is that Bilbo is
saying he realizes he's standoffish by nature, wishes it weren't
true, and believes he has missed out on some good friendships through
being standoffish. The only problem with that interpretation is that
I can't imagine an Englishman of Tolkien's time ever expressing such
a thought out loud, even in Biblo's convoluted fashion!
So the first part is unquestionably a compliment; the second is a
compliment in form but not in effect. Why does Bilbo hold a lower
opinion of them than they merit?

What a great post!

[Bill O'Meally]

Post by Steve Morrison
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=39444
Apparently, the plural really should be “Proudfoots” rather than
“Proudfeet”! So, now that we’ve solved that one—has anyone analyzed
Bilbo’s “half of you half as well” remark to determine whether or
not it /did/ come out to a compliment?

And is there such a thing as Proudfoot Erotica?