Reasons why I love the Board, number infinity

[bookish_dragon]

Watch two intellectuals completely miss the point of LotR:FotR. Noam Chomsky, whom I know mainly as a linguist(?) and a Howard Zinn, whom I've never heard of. Whether this is real or not is, for me, completely besides the point. It's too funny regardless.

One thing though: I doubt Black Speech is Orcish. But I could be wrong.

Edit: so it's not real. Which I might have guessed anyway, but I still found it funny. See boz4pm's comment for more on Chomsky. :)

Comments

[huinesoron.livejournal.com]

Black Speech is not Orcish (although the orcs do use a few corrupted words), 'Orc' doesn't come from 'tark' (it comes from the elvish urqu, while tark is an Orcish corruption of 'tarkil', meaning 'man of the West, Numenorean'), and all in all, there were enough silly mistakes in there that I'm sure it's not real. But, as you say, that's completely beside the point.

[yattara.livejournal.com]

That is what I thought, yes. Thanks for the rest of the info, languages aren't my strong point.

[boz4pm.livejournal.com]

It's not them actually talking - it's a cod written piece. The clue is 'by Jeff Alexander and Tom Bissell'. Chomsky has better things to do with his time than this stuff.

Yeah, he's primarily a linguist - one of the biggest of this generation - but through studies in that field, he slowly became VERY politically outspoken, as I think the writers are trying to have a dig about in that piece. Frankly, Chomsky makes a LOT of sense AND usually has good proof to back it up (he makes a habit of going through US government docs with a fine-tooth comb as they are released and has the memory of an elephant, so he can remember what they said/claimed at the time, the language they used and then compare it with the newly revealed 'truth' - it was how it all started, with his interest in how language can be twisted to hide the truth by goverments).

Zinn, after a quick check, is also someone whose stuff is posted on Z-Net/Z-mag - places that also host Chomsky's work and Robert Fisk's (well known journalist who is also very outspoken about America and the Middle East). Z-Net (http://www.zmag.org/weluser.htm)

Is it funny? Well, I suppose if you think that America was right in going to war in Iraq, then yeah. *shrugs*

[yattara.livejournal.com]

*shrugs.* I think a lot about the Iragi war, though 'The US were justified in going there' isn't one of them. Frankly that wasn't my point, though. I liked the article, is all. It's so wrong on oh so many levels.

But yeah, after what you've told me about Chomsky, I can see the satire inherent in the article. So Iraq would be Mordor then? That doesn't favour the Iragis too well...And Numenor is Atlantis. :P

[boz4pm.livejournal.com]

Oh, I wasn't suggesting that was your point! Sorry for not being clear. No, as I see it the article is a very good parody of Chomsky's style of writing/arguing when he discusses American foreign policy and particularly the Iraq War, thus I think those that wrote the article don't approve of Chomsky's position politically. I didn't read it as 'Iraq = Mordor' so much as 'let's take that git Chomsky's modus operandi and apply it to LOTR'. 'Cept I don't think Chomsky is a git. Far from it.