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Terisonen wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 21, 2017 10:36 am

I bet more on a idiosyncrasy (in a linguistic acceptance) of Tolkien. So, yeah, use it it a hundred time, and again.

I may have miss that in french traduction of Tolkien. I have to re-read it.

zedturtle wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 21, 2017 11:24 am

Terisonen wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 21, 2017 10:36 am

I bet more on a idiosyncrasy (in a linguistic acceptance) of Tolkien. So, yeah, use it it a hundred time, and again.

I may have miss that in french traduction of Tolkien. I have to re-read it.

Is there a French idiom that more or less means the same thing? I’d be curious to know if the idiom is used instead of the literal translation. I’m given to understand that Tolkien is especially hard to translate, because of all the word-play.

Jon Hodgson wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 21, 2017 9:48 am

I'm reliably told that when we look at medieval texts, especially battle reports, that give numbers of thousands it is generally understood that a thousand is shorthand for "lots and lots", and this seems somwhat akin to that.

a hundred sturdy hobbits

but a good many stray ruffians have joined up
with them. There must be close on a hundred of them;

The Tooks did come sooner. Before long they marched in, a hundred strong

When the poor creature died next Spring-she was after all more than a hundred
years old

The third evil was the invasion of the Wainriders, which sapped the waning strength of Gondor in wars that lasted for almost a hundred years.

though they lie hardly more than a hundred leagues north of the Shire.

old even for Hobbits, who reached a hundred as often as not;

and came down again into the Water with a hiss like a hundred hot
snakes.

and yet after a hundredyears they can still surprise you at a pinch.

she had been obliged to wait about seventy-seven years longer for Bag End than she once
hoped, and she was now a hundred years old.

In a hundred yards or so it brought them to the river-bank,

many side-doors, and about a hundred windows.

a hundred yards and more beyond the Hedge;

creased into a hundred wrinkles of laughter.

within a hundred leagues of the Shire.

The worthies of Bree will be discussing it a hundred
years hence.

I could go on. I don't know if there's any deeper meaning here beyond it being an often-used part of Tolkien's lexicon, but it seems relevant to anyone trying to invoke the feel of Tolkien's writing to sprinkle in some "hundred"s when describing amounts of things...

Stormcrow wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 21, 2017 3:59 pm

Jon Hodgson wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 21, 2017 9:48 am

I'm reliably told that when we look at medieval texts, especially battle reports, that give numbers of thousands it is generally understood that a thousand is shorthand for "lots and lots", and this seems somwhat akin to that.

What you've been told certainly is true, but I've only ever heard it applied to military numbers. It's not confined to the medieval; accounts of ancient battles and armies do the same thing. I don't think Tolkien was trying to reproduce this most of the time. He seems to have either actually meant a hundred, or else was giving a vague sense of lots and lots that we still use in English.

a hundred sturdy hobbits

Probably an estimate, but in the ballpark. It probably doesn't mean "lots and lots (but really only fifty)."

but a good many stray ruffians have joined up
with them. There must be close on a hundred of them;

Sounds like a guess of the actual number.

The Tooks did come sooner. Before long they marched in, a hundred strong

Could be a vague "lots and lots," or it might not be.

When the poor creature died next Spring-she was after all more than a hundred
years old

Definitely an actual number.

The third evil was the invasion of the Wainriders, which sapped the waning strength of Gondor in wars that lasted for almost a hundred years.

though they lie hardly more than a hundred leagues north of the Shire.

old even for Hobbits, who reached a hundred as often as not;

Almost certainly all actual numbers.

and came down again into the Water with a hiss like a hundred hot
snakes.

Just a simile, so it doesn't matter.

and yet after a hundredyears they can still surprise you at a pinch.

Just a hypothetical hundred years, so it doesn't matter.

she had been obliged to wait about seventy-seven years longer for Bag End than she once
hoped, and she was now a hundred years old.

An exact number.

In a hundred yards or so it brought them to the river-bank,

An actual estimate.

many side-doors, and about a hundred windows.

Could be a "lots and lots" expression, but I think there may actually be about a hundred windows.

a hundred yards and more beyond the Hedge;

Probably an actual estimate.

creased into a hundred wrinkles of laughter.

Undoubtedly a made-up number meaning "lots and lots." But it's not just an ancient usage of "lots and lots" where we would use an exact number; this is a perfectly acceptable expression in contemporary English.

within a hundred leagues of the Shire.

This one is interesting. People often take it completely literally to estimate the population of Eriador, but it may very well just mean "even very far from the Shire."

The worthies of Bree will be discussing it a hundred
years hence.

A hypothetical hundred years, so it doesn't matter.

I could go on. I don't know if there's any deeper meaning here beyond it being an often-used part of Tolkien's lexicon, but it seems relevant to anyone trying to invoke the feel of Tolkien's writing to sprinkle in some "hundred"s when describing amounts of things...

I don't think there's a deeper meaning, or my responses would have been more uniform. Most of the time he means it literally, or as a ballpark but real target number for some quantity. Occasionally he uses it figuratively to mean "lots and lots." I don't think he ever obviously uses it in the ancient sense of "lots and lots of troops, never mind their actual numbers."