Words and Phrases to Watch Out For

amysrevenge

amysrevenge

Well-Known Member
(I'll try to maintain this list as more come up - add more below!)

There are some words that leap out of the page and into my attention - even if they end up innocuous in a given passage, they often tell a story all by themselves.

Here is my list of words that always make me look twice (or thrice) to see if there is a deeper meaning:

Precious
Chance
Not yet

Gleam (hahaha)

Hope

Hasty

Terrible (describing a person)

Clip
Clop
 
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I've been keen on the whole theme of songs/enchantment/stories and related words.

Curious about Tolkien's embedded ars poetica, especially given that the guiding metaphor for his whole world-building project seems to play on this tension between music and speech (Singing of the Valar and invented languages, manuscript histories, etc, or again the whole Quijote/Sancho Panza thing going on with Frodo and Sam, or the two sides of Bilbo's character likened to poetry and prose...). As such, I especially prick up my ears whenever someone says they can't explain something, can't put into words, etc, or they point out they are only translating, only able to capture some of the wonder of the moment, etc...

Sorry, Narnion and all, I know that's not a question, but I'm still formulating it and would love to hear what you think :)
 
Oh man I was just thinking about that on the train today then forgot to post it. Given the "estel" context it always catches my eye/ear. Good one.
 
Listening to the audiobook about 7 or 8 podcast-years ahead, a certain someone who will remain unnamed for now is described as "terrible" and it seemed like an important word. So I'm going to watch out for anyone described as "terrible" moving forward.
 
Another thing that I keep forgetting to mention. Hearkening back to Shadows of the Past, and the line we spent a lot of time on that I can't remember the exact wording of, but suggesting that the victory of the Last Alliance was not wholly fruitless, or some similar sentiment. Listening over and over to the audiobooks that sort of sentiment keeps coming back. I think we'll hear something like it again in Rivendell, and again much later with Denethor, or possibly in Gondor after Pellenor Fields(?) - I know it, or something like it, keeps coming back. So I'm going to be on the lookout for such references.
 
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