Tolkien and the OED
January 3, 2011
Today would have been J.R.R. Tolkien’s 119th or (as he might have put it) eleventy-ninth birthday. Tolkien was connected with the OED in several ways: as editorial assistant from 1919 to 1920, as consultant on the entry for hobbit, n., and as the first source for 45 words and senses including mithril, n., Orcish, adj. and n., and troll, n.2. You can read more about Tolkien’s involvement with the OED on the Contributors page or in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
