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Lammen Gorthaur
The Shire
Jan 14 2013, 3:03pm
Post #1 of 26
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Why do the Trolls always speak with a Cockney accent?
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In every repesentation of 'the Hobbit' I know, the audiobook read by Rob Inglis, the animated Rankin/Bass movie and of course the film by Peter Jackson, the Trolls always speak with some sort of Cockney accent. Why is this? I cannot imagine that Tolkien specified it that way.
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Lightice
Lorien
Jan 14 2013, 3:07pm
Post #2 of 26
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Well, they speak Cockney in the book, as well.
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"Mutton yesterday, mutton today, and blimey, if it don't look like mutton again tomorrer".
And even the narrator engages in some classism: "...not to mention their language, which was not drawing-room fashion at all, at all" -- basically code for "they were working-class louts".
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arithmancer
Grey Havens
Jan 14 2013, 3:11pm
Post #3 of 26
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Not by using the word to describe their accent, more by the way he wrote their dialogue in "The Hobbit".
It's got (to my non-expert, USian eyes) peculiarities such as the use of "me" for "my", "yer" for your, and "you wants" instead of "you want", which might suggest this to English persons more familiar with the different accents there. The enchanted purse also drops its h's, which is not indicated for the Trolls. but that might also be to make all the dialogue easier to read. Lots of words stating with '(vowel), else...
(This post was edited by arithmancer on Jan 14 2013, 3:12pm)
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Rostron2
Gondor
Jan 14 2013, 4:39pm
Post #4 of 26
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He was no doubt fascinated even by dialects in his native England. Cockney has long carried the stigma of the poorly educated working class around with it, and rightly or wrongly, that's the stereotype that has persisted.
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ShireHorse
Rohan
Jan 14 2013, 4:42pm
Post #5 of 26
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Didn't we have this discussion
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before the film came out? Lots of people thought their accent would be Cockney if PJ stuck to the book. It's not only the use of me/my, yer/you but the use of the mild Cockney expletive "blimey". Sometimes this is extended to "Cor blimey" or shortened to merely "Cor!" But it's a corruption of "May God blind me!" when pronunciation was changed to avoid the charge of using blasphemous religious oaths. Likewise, the piratical-sounding "S'blood!" which was a corruption of "By God's blood!" or the other popular Cockney one: "Strewth!" which was shortened from "By God's truth!"
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dormouse
Half-elven
Jan 14 2013, 4:49pm
Post #6 of 26
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It is the way he wrote them in the book...
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...it's a comic stereotype very familiar in late 19th/early 20th century books and plays - think Eliza Doolittle and her father in Shaw's 'Pygmalion'. Tolkien probably put on accents when he told the story to his sons, and this was one they would have recognised.
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N.E. Brigand
Half-elven
Jan 14 2013, 5:04pm
Post #7 of 26
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Similarly, "Zounds!" comes from "God's wounds". //
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N.E. Brigand
Half-elven
Jan 14 2013, 5:08pm
Post #8 of 26
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"Yes, I am afraid trolls do behave like that, even those with only one head each."
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Here's some more of Tolkien's troll dialogue:
'Never a blinking bit of manflesh have we had for long enough', said a second. 'What the 'ell William was a-thinkin' of to bring us into these parts at all, beats me -- and the drink runnin' short, what's more', he said jogging the elbow of William, who was taking a pull at his jug.
William choked. 'Shut yer mouth!' he said as soon as he could. 'Yer can't expect folk to stop here for ever just to be et by you and Bert. You've et a village and a half between yer, since we come down from the mountains. How much more d'yer want? And time's been up our way, when yer'd have said "thank yer Bill" for a nice bit o' fat valley mutton like what this is.' He took a big bite off a sheep's leg he was toasting, and wiped his lips on his sleeve.
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DanielLB
Immortal
Jan 14 2013, 5:09pm
Post #9 of 26
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It's not only the use of me/my, yer/you but the use of the mild Cockney expletive "blimey". Sometimes this is extended to "Cor blimey" or shortened to merely "Cor!" But it's a corruption of "May God blind me!" when pronunciation was changed to avoid the charge of using blasphemous religious oaths.
I use blimey all the time.
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Morthoron
Gondor
Jan 14 2013, 6:10pm
Post #10 of 26
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Actually, Tolkien tried for a more Oxfordian accent originally...
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The troll scene as originally envisioned by Tolkien in a more clipped and polished dialect:
Bilbo slunked stealthily through the woods towards the mysterious light, not even daring to breathe. As he approached the clearing, Bilbo indeed saw a roaring bonfire and three figures of giant stature gnawing on great, greasy legs of roast mutton. Even though he had never seen one, Bilbo was convinced these were trolls based on their tremendous size and their gruff voices speaking in a vulgar language that was almost foreign to Bilbo. Even now, the trolls were engaged in an argument.
The troll Bilbo later indentified as William was growling and grunting: "...but Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy, with its reverent Platonism, certainly had a direct effect on Thomistic Scholasticism and even on the works of Chaucer."
Another troll, Bert, was obviously being disagreeable: "Yes, yes, you and your Neo-Platonist platitudes. Boethius' work has been largely rejected for a more Aristotelian view, and a modern emphasis on material productiveness."
And it seemed the third troll, Tom, sided with Bert: "Not to mention Boethius' inward looking virtues - quite foreign these days."
"Yes, that's precisely what I am saying," Bert nodded with a satisfied air.
William would not back down. "Yet it is noble to eschew worldly goods such as money and power, and to seek instead internalized virtues."
But neither did Bert. "But nobility will not feed an empty stomach, Bill m'dear; the more practical applications of Aristotle and the rational search for meaning found in his scientific method..."
"Bah!" William spat. "The scientific method! Just another means by which the military-industrial complex foists its technocracy on the proletariat, subjugating the masses in industrial thrall with the nodding consent of the pretentious bourgeoisie!"
"Bloody Marxist Franciscan swine!" bellowed Bert.
"Capitalist Jesuit hyena!" William countered and stuck his greasy thumb in Bert's eye.
The trolls then started bashing each other with branches and rolled about near the fire. While the mayhem ensued, Bilbo saw a chance to practice his burgling skills. He had noticed that a large purse was hanging enticingly from William's pocket. Summoning up every ounce of courage he possessed, Bilbo snuck into the circle of light.
"Easy now, Bilbo," the hobbit said to himself, "just slip the purse from the pocket and sneak back to the dwarves, no worse for the wear..."
But, as we all know, trolls' purses are enchanted (how we know that, I am not sure, but it seems plausible). Suddenly the purse, in a voice reminiscent of Maurice Chevalier, shrieked in patois, "Vat ees thees? Eet seems I am being - how you say - purloined by un petit burglar sans hauteur! Mon dieu! L'aide, je suis volé!"
In a twinkling, William had roughly picked Bilbo up by an ankle and suspended him in mid-air. "Well, well, my dear chaps," the troll laughed, "look who's come for dinner!"
"Hmmm, he seems a bit on the smallish side, Bill," Tom said thoughtfully. "Perhaps we should stuff him in a capon l'orange met sous verre, garnished with leeks and pimento."
Bert shook his head. "Nonsense, Thomas, he is obviously a hors-d'oeuvre - a finger food, if you will."
"Fingers and toes, my dear Bertram," Tom chuckled, "fingers and toes!"
"Ah, your wit is delicious, brother Tom," Bert replied.
"Enough of this idle banter, lads!" William growled. "We need to find out exactly what this creature is, and furthermore, if there are more of his ilk skulking about." The troll gave Bilbo a jarring shake and said harshly, "Now, little fellow, what have you to say for yourself?"
"Yes, what are you exactly?" Bert asked suspiciously.
Being suspended upside did not aid Bilbo in this interrogation. The blood was rushing to his head and the ashes from the fire had got in his eyes. All he could do was sputter, "I...I...am a bur...a hobbit."
"Burrahobbit?" Tom hissed incredulously. "What species is that precisely? An insect?"
"He appears more mammalian," Bert deduced. "Perhaps a rabbit with mange - what with fur only about his head and toes."
"Never mind all that," William groused, "are there more of you about?"
Bilbo could not think clearly. "Many...None. There are none."
"Now that's a bit paradoxical," said Tom.
"I should say!" Bert agreed.
William was taking a dim view of Bilbo's dissembling. "Now look, my mammalian appetizer, what do you mean by 'many and none'?"
-- And a bit later, after the dwarves had been sacked:
As the trolls were preparing their dwarvish repast, a voice like Bert's was heard to say, "It was Thomas Jefferson who rightly said, 'Take from Plato his sophisms, futilities and incomprehensibilities, and what remains? His foggy mind.'"
William, who thought Bert was speaking, snarled, "Don't start that argument all over again, Bert, or it'll take all night!"
Bert, who thought it was William speaking, replied angrily, "Who's arguing, I should like to know? I thought you had an epiphany and were finally agreeing with Tom and me regarding the modern rejection of Plato."
"I'll give you an epiphany all right!" William barked. "Stop arguing, you lout!"
"I was not arguing," Bert said, "and I demand you retract you assertion!"
"I shall not!" William answered indignantly.
A voice like Tom's interrupted, "Well, Friedrich Nietzsche did say 'Plato is a bore.'"
William, who thought it was Tom speaking, sighed, "See? Now you've got Tom in on it, with his boorish asides!"
Tom, who thought it was Bert speaking, shot back, "I'm not in on nothing! But Bert's got a point about Nietzsche's appraisal...and what do you mean by boorish asides?"
"Nietzsche? Bah!" William spat. "A syphilitic mental-case mumbling nihilistic aphorisms!"
A voice like Bert's then spoke, "Well, Thomas Aquinas was so grossly obese he should have named his philosophy Elasticism rather than Scholasticism!"
William, who thought it was Bert speaking, said sarcastically, "Oh, very clever, Bert! Did you think that one up all by yourself, or did you confer with the other buffoon?"
Bert, who thought it was William speaking, yelled, "Who's the buffoon? You're the idiot arguing with himself, like some contradictory schizophrenic!"
And so, the philosophical battle of intellectual giants (well, trolls, actually) raged on through the evening, and into the night, and right up to the break of day, when...
"And isn't that just like an existentialist," William bellowed in exasperation, "trying to get the last posit in..."
But that was the last word poor Will or his troll brothers ever uttered. As the sun peeked over the hills, they froze in their positions, their rhetorical semantics forever suspended in mid-retort.
Please visit my blog...The Dark Elf File...a slighty skewed journal of music and literary comment, fan-fiction and interminable essays.
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swordwhale
Tol Eressea
Jan 14 2013, 6:21pm
Post #11 of 26
(596 views)
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LOL ROFLMAO
(perhaps textspeak and emoticons will become the next Cockney accent...)
Go outside and play...
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SirDennisC
Half-elven
Jan 14 2013, 6:34pm
Post #13 of 26
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And why are they the only ones with contemporary names?
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apart from some pack animals...
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SirDennisC
Half-elven
Jan 14 2013, 6:43pm
Post #14 of 26
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The brilliance of your revision would turn any common creature to stone, granite to be precise.
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N.E. Brigand
Half-elven
Jan 14 2013, 6:56pm
Post #15 of 26
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Well, Bilbo and William have similar surnames.
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Baggins and Huggins, respectively.
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Ruxendil_Thoorg
Tol Eressea
Jan 14 2013, 7:13pm
Post #16 of 26
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Boethius, Chaucer, Plato, Nietzsche, Marx, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Francis, Aristotle, and Maurice Chevalier ....
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(a) would have been proud;
(b) would have been offended;
(c) could be a possible answer to the question "If Rufus appeared suddenly before you at the Circle K in San Dimas, CA and gave you a time machine that looks like a phonebooth and gave you the chance to pick your own Fellowship of Nine to help you in your quest to save the future of our existence by finishing your term paper on Intellectual History, and one of them could be a French comedian-entertainer to break up the monotony with a sprinkling of 'Thank 'Eaven for Leetle Girls' now and then, who would you pick?";
OR
(d) 'Ere? 'oo r they?
Not sure which. But either way, Bravo and thanks for the laugh!
A bag is like a hole that you can carry with you.
http://newboards.theonering.net/...forum_view_expanded;
(This post was edited by Ruxendil_Thoorg on Jan 14 2013, 7:15pm)
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DanielLB
Immortal
Jan 14 2013, 7:15pm
Post #17 of 26
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Bilbo's family tree is littered with contemporary names as well. /
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SirDennisC
Half-elven
Jan 14 2013, 7:51pm
Post #18 of 26
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Oh you're not getting off that easy Daniel
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of whom do you refer? And, and are these names mentioned in The Hobbit?
(This post was edited by SirDennisC on Jan 14 2013, 7:52pm)
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DanielLB
Immortal
Jan 14 2013, 8:01pm
Post #19 of 26
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Admittedly ... none of them are referenced in the book at all.
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But there's Lily, Daisy, Ruby, Dora and Laura. Strange how there all female (unless I don't remember the male ones).
(This post was edited by DanielLB on Jan 14 2013, 8:02pm)
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Ataahua
Forum Admin
/ Moderator
Jan 14 2013, 8:19pm
Post #20 of 26
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Celebrimbor: "Pretty rings..."
Dwarves: "Pretty rings..."
Men: "Pretty rings..."
Sauron: "Mine's better."
"Ah, how ironic, the addictive qualities of Sauron’s master weapon led to its own destruction. Which just goes to show, kids - if you want two small and noble souls to succeed on a mission of dire importance... send an evil-minded beggar with them too." - Gandalf's Diaries, final par, by Ufthak.
Ataahua's stories
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N.E. Brigand
Half-elven
Jan 14 2013, 8:21pm
Post #21 of 26
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"Sensitive reader, start not at the apparition! Oxford is a plexus of anomalies."
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What fun! Thinking of Oxfordian parody, I wonder, has anyone read tried reading Max Beerbohm's Zuleika Dobson, or an Oxford Love Story, with an eye to Tolkienian connections? He went up in 1911, the same year that book was published. A quick glance reveals a character named Noaks, but nothing else jumps out, except maybe that the narrator intrudes:
I am loth to interrupt my narrative at this rather exciting moment—a moment when the quick, tense style, exemplified in the last paragraph but one, is so very desirable. But in justice to the gods I must pause to put in a word of excuse for them. They had imagined that it was in mere irony that the Duke had said he could not die till after the bumping-races; and not until it seemed that he stood ready to make an end of himself had the signal been given by Zeus for the rain to fall. One is taught to refrain from irony, because mankind does tend to take it literally. In the hearing of the gods, who hear all, it is conversely unsafe to make a simple and direct statement. So what is one to do? The dilemma needs a whole volume to itself.
Wikipedia says the setting is based on Merton College, which would be Tolkien's college from 1945 to 1959.
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ryouko
Lorien
Jan 14 2013, 10:55pm
Post #22 of 26
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Isn't that a name that sometimes crops up in our time? Granted, it's not common, but it has been used.
And even though it's not technically in the Hobbit, if you look at the family trees in the back of RoTK, you'll see some names that are still used today.
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Aragalen the Green
Gondor
Jan 14 2013, 11:45pm
Post #23 of 26
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Elanor? I've seen it spelled Eleanor, Alianore, Eleanore.
" Well well!", said a voice. "Just look! Bilbo the hobbit on a pony, my dear! Isn't it delicious!"
"Most astonishing wonderful!"
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Fredeghar Wayfarer
Lorien
Jan 14 2013, 11:51pm
Post #24 of 26
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The Men of Bree had some contemporary names as well (Bill Ferny, Harry Goatleaf, etc.). The trolls presumably picked up the Common Speech and the local accent of the Men of the area, either the Bree-men or farmers of the former lands of Arnor.
Remember though that the conceit Tolkien uses is that the books are translated from Westron. So the trolls would not actually have names like William Huggins and such. That's just what Tolkien "translated" them to in order to give the impression of uneducated, working class types.
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DanielLB
Immortal
Jan 15 2013, 10:34am
Post #25 of 26
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Yup, it wasn't supposed to be an exhaustive list. :-) /
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