Wednesday, September 19, 2018
Relevance Post: Good Conversation
In today's world, conversation can be a very casual thing. In the Lord of the Rings, conversation can also be casual, but it can also be a thing filled with rapport and tradition. Tolkien, being a scholar who studied language, must have appreciated the deep meanings of words and how they might be used in conversation. Throughout the LOTR, the hobbits are referred to as well spoken folk. Noble people in realizing this lent their ears more readily to hobbits after making this discovery. There were many aspects about the modern world which disturbed Tolkien, and I can't help but wonder if the increasingly casual use of words and conversation was among those things. Today, we recognize many things as having become cheapened and words can be included among them. How often do we stop to think about crafting a sentence of lasting worth before speaking it and realizing the full effect of the words that comprise it? I know I don't practice that enough. Conversation has the potential to be powerful force in the lives of the persons engaging in it. While the conversations among the noble in the LOTR use grand and lofty phrases and words, they are still good models for meaningful discussions today because such words and phrases inherently convey deep meaning. And deep meaning is something the modern world yearns for with all its heart, something Tolkien so keenly recognized.
4 comments:
We also see the rich meaning of words exhibited in the way Tolkien created language. He chose names for certain characters based on connotations carried by those words, as we've seen in many of the group presentations.
I've also noticed the flimsiness of words that people use in regular conversation, which is actually why I like watching movies set in an older era when people spoke properly and with purpose. A very prevalent example of this is profanity. You can take many profane words and use them as a noun, verb, adjective, or adverb. Which makes me wonder, "Does it actually have meaning if it can mean anything?"
I fullheartedly believe Tolkien was a very methodical person, especially with word choice. He wanted readers to take something great away from his writting and to do so he needed every aspect of his story telling carefully chosen. And I also coincide with you that I don't think of the meaning or impact my words have or should have as often as I should before I speak. Hopefully this will be something we all learn by the end of the semester.
I feel that Tolkien was very specific with his word choice. I also find him a complete inspiration in terms of how thoroughly he perceived language. However, I find this view to be from a position of privilege. I think that by using more words casually and by allowing ourselves the opportunity to fluctuate the level of difficulty of our sentences we are really taking the language into our own hands. For centuries language structure and complexity of words has divided peoples based on who was "worthy." In this "cheapening" of language, our society has really just level the language playing field.
I agree, Arien. I think Tolkien thought not just about the importance of words in creating the languages of a mythical world, but also in everyday conversation, especially in the conversations in his books. His love for words also makes all his writing, not just the conversations, much better. I think today good conversation really is becoming harder and harder to find as people communicate in abrupt or thoughtless messages. I’m not saying that online conversations can’t be good (this blog has great discussions) but they often aren’t. I don’t think that this has leveled the playing field, rather it has weakened our communication of important concepts.
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