Monday, November 7, 2011

Word Watch 14, "wordmonger"

So, I love The Lord of the Rings. I was looking up words on the OED, and I came across wordmonger. Immediately I thought of Wormtongue's accusing Eomer of "warmongering." I assumed this meant searching needlessly for something against which to defend his people, searching out war. Applying the definition on the OED, this makes sense as originally wordmonger meant "a person who deals in strange, pedantic, or empty words." So a warmonger would be one who deals with empty or meaningless war (even though this is a false accusation made by Wormtongue against Eomer).
Now, wordmonger has come to mean "a person skilled in the use of words." This makes sense, even though it wasn't the original meaning, in the context of Wormtongue's use of the warmongering, as well, as Eomer is a skilled warrior. Wormtongue is annoyed that Eomer notices too much of what he is doing "behind the scenes"--Eomer sees too much of what Wormtongue doesn't want anyone to see--which is the attacks of the goblins bearing the mark of Saruman, Wormtongue's master. In other words, Eomer is too skilled at being a warrior and a defender of his people, and is therefore not falsely accused of being a warmonger.

Cool.

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