Talk:Hobbit (word)

message: See Talk:Hobbit for previous discussion relating to the "Denham Hobbit". Anárion 19:51, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: When I created this page I chose the title Hobbit (folklore) because even though there isn't any absolute proof that Hobbits existed in English folklore, the page is concerned with that subject.
Hobbit (Denham) I don't really think is a great title, because although the page currently and necessarily places a heavy emphasis on Denham, his Hobbit in particular isn't really the subject matter of the page.  The subject matter is the known existence of Hobbits prior to Tolkien and the alleged existence of Hobbits in English folklore.
Is there some sort of compromise we could come to? --Corvun 02:30, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Fact is there is no trace of pre-Tolkien "Hobbits" anywhere to be found (Tolkien himself searched from 1932 to his death for an alternate source that may have been his inspiration, but nothing was ever found). Therefore the only 'hobbit' outside Tolkien is Denham: it is thus the Denham Hobbit. If Hobbits were part of English folklore, at least one other source should be possible to be found. Anárion 14:29, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

text: I moved the page to Hobbit (word). This seems more appropriate considering the article concerns the word itself. —jiy (talk) 22:08, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Title change 

message: Am I the only one who feels that this article skirts the line between encyclopedia and OR essay?  Its well cited, but seems to be more about compiling sources to prove a conclusion than simply recording a consensus. Wickedjacob (talk) 15:56, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't find it essayish at all, however I've now combined the two Tolkien sections under one headline to present that part as one opposed to the earlier sources. De728631 (talk) 18:10, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  article or essay? 

message: I might point out that there is an obsolete word hob for "fairy, sprite, elf", apparently (via Middle English hobbe?) from an hypocoristic form of the personal name "Robert" (BTW, the substitution of r with h is curious – the uvular r in French doesn't seem to be old enough to explain that), and moreover there is the suffix -it (as in, well, rabbit), a variant of the diminutive suffix -et, which is again borrowed from French. The conclusion that by the time the word hob was still current (19th century?), at least in dialects, the word hobbit would obviously have been taken to refer to a small spirit-being from folklore in the vein of the "little people", and thus something essentially identical to both Tolkien's hobbits and (likely) the Denham hobbit, presents itself. This could explain why so many people in Tolkien's day thought they had heard this term somewhere before (perhaps even in essentially the same sense): regardless of actual use and attestion, the word was so "up in the air" and obvious (obviously interpretable) as a derivation (diminutive formation) of an old-fashioned word for a mythological spirit-being that those familiar with the word just had to have a déjà vu feeling. (Even for those not familiar with the simple word hob, it could easily be extracted from hobgoblin, as both that word and goblin were still well-known, as they remain to the present day.) It must have sounded familiar and sensible in context. Considering how obvious the formation is, the possibility that it was even actually used somewhere – anywhere – in some dialect at least, or attested (even outside the Denham Tracts), and that (as proposed by the OED) perhaps Tolkien actually did read it somewhere (in the Denham Tracts?) and later thought of it again without remembering that he had seen it mentioned somewhere else before (the phenomenon of unconscious plagiarism or cryptomnesia being well-known and absolutely commonplace), suggests itself as utterly plausible. I have to wonder if Tolkien was himself aware of hob and the suffix -it, and, as a Cambrophile, of the synonymous Welsh unit of measure – it's hard to believe he was not. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 13:33, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  As a diminutive of "hob" 

message: Since this article's about the word 'hobbit', perhaps a section should be added about the extension of its meaning to Homo floresiensis (with attendant controversy about copyrights and trademarks)? Q·L·1968 ☿ 16:48, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: ''Homo floresiensis''

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thread_title:  External links modified