#i will follow thee to the ends of arda for thy wisdom is unrivalled and thou art noble and fair and glorious in thy wrath | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

g00seg1raffe · 1 month ago

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Can i share something that happened to me last year

I'm minding my own business and this guy who I kind of know but wouldn't really consider myself friends with (trauma bonded on a school trip last year and haven't spoken since) comes up to me like hey, what are you doing? And I say: world-building the ancient history of Lord of the Rings. And then I proceed to tell him all about the various genocides of the first age, with a side note on Maedhros' Quenya name, which literally means 'the hot redhead who's third in line for the throne', with his mother name meaning 'hot damn', his father name meaning 'third of the king's name' and his nickname meaning 'redhead'. Then I explain that loads of elves get nicknames, like Gil-Galad and other people who I can't remember.

And he goes cool, can I have an elvish nickname? And I say sure, what do you want it to mean?

And he goes: big daddy

and I don't know what's more embarrassing: a) he thought that, b) he asked that, or c) I could translate that off the top of my head.

#In Sindarin: Belegada #In Quenya: Poldatya or Poldatto #both Beleg and Polda refer not only to 'big' as in size #but also in the sense that a big daddy is powerful mighty influential etc #also 'daddy' in elvish - ada atya or atto - doesn't have the same connotations of a rich sugar daddy kind of providing figure #(or if it does jirt mcCatholic the conservative and repressed definately didn't put that in Laws and Customs of the Eldar)#modern english only uses 'father' as in 'estranged dickhead sperm donor'#and 'daddy' as in 'I wear what he wants and he takes such good care of meee~ I'm a little kitten I'll follow this toxic man anywhere <3'#elvish uses 'daddy' as in 'actual pure innocent child addressing their dad get your head out of the gutter'#and 'father' as in 'lord and leader first and greatest of us all I pledge my undying loyalty to thee #i will follow thee to the ends of arda for thy wisdom is unrivalled and thou art noble and fair and glorious in thy wrath #i place my faith in thee my lord my prince my king for i know thou shalt not lead me astray...'#then the doom of the noldor happens and everyone dies in agony #anyway this is effectively the same as 'ill do as my daddy says because i love him so much~~~'#so it would better fit the spirit of 'big daddy' to actually say 'great/noble father' in elvish?#but im not telling my dumbass friend that he can walk around like an idiot and be proud of his poorly-translated epessë #like the pretentious but secretly insecure ass he secretly is

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