> I also suggested in that post that Tolkien may have unconsciously
> borrowed from Middle English, which got it from French, which
> got it from Latin, which yields our _twa corbies_, "two crows."
>
sounds reasonable...
> > > Did anybody else interpret these birds as other than
> > > hideous Mordorish crows?
> >
> > Isengardish? ;)
>
> Slapping hand to forehead. And I've only read the book
> three times and seen the movie three times. Of course
> Isengardish.
> But Mordor.... reminds me of "a murder
> of crows." You know, like "a gaggle of geese?" One
> of English's weird selection of "classifiers"?
Yep but does anyone seriously use them - apart from a few
like flock, shoal, scool, gaggle etc. There seem to be tens
or hundreds of them attested when someone goes and seeks them
out.
> A Mordor of crows? <G> No, from Isengard.
He he.. ho ho.. <clutches belly>.
That will keep me grinning for a while. Hadn't thought
of that ;)
> > PS. The relay game looks wonderful - All I need now is a conlang! I don't
> > want to rush ahead though. Just investigating other peoples', getting a
> > hang of some interesting grammatical ideas ('ergativity' took a bit of
> > work, but came in a flash!).
>
> I strongly suggest that you deny yourself not one minute longer
> the pleasure of inventing your own language.
Come, come... let us not be hasty now... ;)
> You should start
> right away. Put your day job on hold and go to it!!
Well actually it's about time to start looking for a day job ;(
boo...
s.