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JRR Tolkien
JRR Tolkien was once asked if he would write further episodes of Lord of the Rings. His response was extraordinary.
"I did begin a story placed about 100 years after the downfall of Mordor," Tolkien said, "but it proved both sinister and depressing. Since we are dealing with men it is inevitable that we should be concerned with the most regrettable feature of their nature: their quick satiety with good. So that the people of Gondor in times of peace, justice, and prosperity, would be become discontented and restless, while the dynasts descended from Aragorn would become just kings and governors, like Denethor or worse. Not worth doing."
The words come from a letter by Tolkien written to Colin Bailey in 1964, and show both his humanity and insight. I like the comment on the livestrong.com blog: "Tolkien was a great man. To realise the worth of a story even before it was written and then abort the project speaks volumes to me. He was a story teller and not a mercenary."
The words in the Tolkien quote I find most interesting, however, are "... the most regrettable feature of their nature: their quick satiety with good".
Gondor in the Lord of the Rings is the land of men, and so Tolkien is saying that the worst thing about human nature is an inability to cope with the very things we seek. Tolkien thinks that the more we get what we want, the less content we are.
This is something of a conundrum. How can good be bad?
Father James V Schall, Professor of Government at the Jesuit Georgetown University in Washington DC, says in a fascinating commentary that Tolkien's idea is related to earlier philosophical ideas. GK Chesterton, for example, said we are more likely to lose our souls if we are rich than we are poor.
From a less religious point of view, Fr Schall brings together ideas by Plato and St Augustine. The first said the desires of man are unlimited. The second said all finite things are good.
It all makes a strong case for what most of us suspect, and what becomes slowly clearer as we get older: neither money nor material possessions guarantee happiness.
Peter Jackson's wonderful portrayal of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy begins and ends in the village of Hobbiton, the idyllic home of Bilbo, Frodo, Sam and their fellow hobbits. The hobbits have their foibles and their squabbles, but they are generally content in such serene surroundings in a way man, it seems, can not be.
If Tolkien could have seen Jackson's pictures, I think he would have nodded in recognition and appreciation.
English is simple, right? Where French and Italian makes things difficult with two forms of the definite article, masculine and feminine, and German makes things even tougher by throwing in neuter, English uses just one word. The. Isn't that easy?
Unfortunately, no. Which, for example, is correct: "She is in hospital" or "She is in the hospital". The answer depends if you are British or American.
Spare a thought for anyone who has had to learn such nuances as a second language. An interesting example is a German learning English. The German sentence, "Da er Gärtner ist, liebt er die Natur" translates to, "Being a gardener, he is fond of nature". Note that the German construction uses no article before the noun Gärtner while English requires an indefinite article, and German requires a definite article before Natur while English requires no article.
Dig a bit further and it becomes apparent that the rules governing English articles are not simple at all.
One of the least understood dark corners of the language is the use of indefinite articles. A versus an. Is it correct, for example, to say a history or an history?
The issue causes considerable debate, and it is possible in an internet search to find persuasive opinion claiming both are correct. The real answer is "a history", but the reason is a little surprising. Most of us know the rule that an is used before a vowel and a is used before a consonant. What is not always clearly understood is that this applies to the way language is spoken, not written.
Take, for example, an East Londoner who speaks with a Cockney accent. This person would never pronounce the h at the start of the word history. They would say "an 'istory". They would also say an 'ospital and an 'orse etc. And they would be grammatically correct in doing so!
For those who do pronounce the h in history, on the other hand, a rather than an is correct.
It is for the same reason that it is right to use an before words that are spelled with an initial consonant but which are pronounced with an initial vowel sound: an honour, an heir etc. And it is for the same reason that it is correct to use a before a word spelled with an initial vowel but pronounced with an initial consonant sound: a ewe, a university etc.
And the deepest, darkest corner of all surrounds the word historical. "A historical period" is technically correct, and it is easy enough to write it like that. But who amongst us thinks to say it that way? Not me.
research: owl.english.purdue.edu, davidappleyard.com, encarta.msn.com
1.
Arachnophobia is a scary word
2.
Spiders sit on walls in a way that isn't natural. They just hang there as if gravity is of no concern to them. What other strange powers do they have?
3.
Spiders are poisonous. Okay, not all spiders are poisonous, but when there is one hanging on your wall, staring at you as if it can't decide whether you are main course or dessert, it is prudent to assume it is poisonous.
4.
Spiders can't see well. But instead of getting glasses, they have learned to understand their environment through vibrations. They sense vibrations and they know absolutely everything that is going on. Except whether you are main course or dessert. That they need to think about for a while.
5.
Even worse, spiders digest their food outside their body. After they catch their evening meal — it could be someone you know — they drag up from their intestines possibly the most disgusting substance in the known universe, called a digestive enzyme, and rub it all over their meal. The spiders then play poker for a while while the meal digests, after which they return and suck up dinner, which is now in a spider-friendly liquid form.
6.
Like their digestive practices, spiders like to externalise their skeletal systems. They are what's known as arthropods. That means they have their skeleton on the outside and everything else on the inside. The word arthropod probably derives from the Latin term for terror.
7.
Spiders have minute claws at the base of each leg which help them walk across spider webs. It is almost certain that these tiny claws have other, more sinister, uses which scientists have yet to discover.
8.
Clever people tell us that tarantulas are not poisonous. Big deal. That is absolutely the only thing about tarantulas that isn't terrifying. It is possible they modelled Darth Vader on tarantulas. Without the hair.
9.
It is widely claimed by so-called experts that the daddy-long-legs has the most toxic venom of all spiders. Other so-called experts will say there is no scientific evidence for this claim. Yet other so-called experts claim the daddy-long-legs isn't in fact a spider at all. Who to believe? Our advice is to err on the safe side. Run.
10.
Spiders eat their old webs before spinning new ones. It just proves they will eat anything.
Sources: overcomefearofspiders.info, faunanet.gov.au, news.com.au; images: sydneywildlifeworld.com.au, cdn-write.demandstudios.com
I'm exhausted! The Little Boss must have slept really, really well last night because instead of going for the usual walk to the park and back this morning, she took us on a guided tour of the suburb.
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Hong Kong, I once heard someone say, is the only city in the world with the same energy as New York. Hong Kong is a thriving, busy metropolis and Hong Kong people live their lives at speed.
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President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, for whom freedom of the press has become politically inconvenient
There are two reasons for a national government to introduce legislation establishing ownership and other regulatory controls over the media. The first reason is to prevent monopolies — nobody wants Rupert Murdoch owning everything. The second reason is to muzzle critics of the government.
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Greyhounds are part of the sight hound group of dogs which have particularly acute senses. Sight hounds include wolfhounds, deerhounds and the Hubble telescope.
Greyhounds sleep long and deeply. Mine sleep on a pair of sofas in the living room and you can hold a party, set off fireworks or put the house on the back of a truck and move it to another state, and they won't move
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When I was about 10, my favourite number was 10. My favourite football team was Sturt and my favourite player was Rick Schoff. I called him Ricky. He wore number 10.
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US President Barack Obama has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples".
We look forward to SL Bradish's refutation.
China is preparing to introduce animal welfare legislation. It is hoped the country's first laws making animal abuse and cruelty a punishable offence will address such issues as municipal dog culls. This is a common practice, aimed at fighting rabies, but often sees thousands of dogs at a time brutally killed.
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Comment by Chris Champion
on Do hobbits understand what man does not?
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It does seem that way, doesn't it. Imagine if we expended all that energy trying to devise a better political system!