Uncle Bilbo, I was reading your story, There and Back Again,

Reminder that the original There and Back Again was purported to be written in Hobbit, and that Tolkien was acting as translator. There were bound to be some idioms that did not translate well to english, and so he replaced them with something that made sense. Frodo would never have been able to read the translation in the first place, so the questions are moot.

>>50806402

You could arguably use that for idiomatic expressions, but some of them (such as names of foodstuffs that would only be discovered in the Colombian exchange, albeit only applicable in the original edition) can't really work along those lines.

Plus, the narrator's digressions identifying the narrator as a human don't seem to be something that is possible just because of translation drift, unless you want to argue that Tolkien "changed" the meaning quite a lot.

>>50806504
It's happened before. Translators often put their own spin on things. Look at different editions of Arabian Nights, for example. Also, the Red Book of Westmarch changed hands many, many times, so there's bound to be some idiosyncrasies in there which Tolkien no doubt had to work around.

Because, dear Frodo, you touch yourself at night.

>>50806626

Well, I could probably get a girlfriend, maybe even a wife, if people didn't all think I was "queer", primarily from my association with you.

>>50806376
>And why did you keep making digressions about our people that everyone knows, and address these segues like you're talking to one of the Big People?

I wrote a book meant to actually be read by more than five people in total, you Hobbit supremacist shitlord.

>>50806376
This dumb meme is dead. Stop digging up corpses.

>>50806654

But, you keep it locked up in your room, I think I and Gandalf have been the only people who have ever looked at it.

>>50806504
>unless you want to argue that Tolkien "changed" the meaning quite a lot

Literally what happened and what people expected from a translation at the time. Different times had different values and early 20th century people expected the translator to also "adapt" the work for his readers expectations and tastes.

>>50806635
Yeah well if you went on an adventure of your own nobody would think you gay anymore. Oh, and bring the Gamgee boy, the pair of you would look quite heterosexual indeed.

>>50806376
When I was a freshman in college we read a modern translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses that mentioned two characters having a rap battle, so shut up

>>50806402
fpbp

>>50806402
This. OP is a pedantic cunt.