As a completely pointless argument, I'd like to suggest that Tolkien might have
used it despite its fishy connotations. Because the Elves didn't call tunny or
tuna 'tuna'. They had some other name for it (if they ate it at all - which
makes me think that the Teleri probably enjoyed good quality sushi being
friends with Osse and all). Anyway, a philologist would know that languages
do sometimes have crazy coincidences like this, and that editing it out,
if it was in fact the correct word in his internal language logic, would be a
betrayal of the kind of authenticity he was trying to create.
And yes, I know there's probably a million arguments against this, and that he
did change names willy nilly, but I'm sticking with this theory. For today at
any
rate.
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"There are solid grounds for the charges that the work is Anglophilic, horrendously middle class, sectarian, and masculinist."
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