I've always struggled with Tolkien's choice of this word too and despite my
best efforts the fish is never far from my mind whenever I see it mentioned
(knowing it's pronounced toona as they would in the US just makes things
worse)!
I'm pretty sure tuna would have been widely known as tunny or tunny-fish in
Britain before the Second World War.Although it's commonplace in our diet today
as a species not often found in British fishing grounds at that time, I would
have thought it was somewhat of a luxury item here then and even Tolkien would
not have come across it many times.
Interestingly though apparently the effects of global warming have caused the
incidence of tuna being caught near British shores to rise sharply in the last
few years and some forecast the fish may become resident.As you can see I have
too much time on my hands at the
moment!
