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<blockquote data-quote="teitan" data-source="post: 9046560" data-attributes="member: 3457">You are factually incorrect. Elf before Tolkien did indeed include beautiful human people all the way down to dwarves depending on the culture and the different cultures had a shared etymology for the word coming from Aelfr/Alfr etc. the word Orc also has etymological antecedents, including as Orc, and the derivative word was Orcus, a name for Hades as lord of Hell and the word Orca, or demon. Orc itself, simple google search on this, was ferocious sea creature and orcneas was Old English for “monster”. Encyclopedia Brittanica says Orc also is from the Italian word for Ogre… Orco.So was it Middle English? No but Tolkien was a man obsessed with etymology and languages and he did not create the word. He appropriated it for his “monsters”. And since we’ve lost the classical education popular in his time our arrogance assumes people in that time didn’t make the connection that the word Orc indicated monster. Just like we don’t make the connection that goblin also means a type of faerie and and elf is also a type of faerie.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="teitan, post: 9046560, member: 3457"] You are factually incorrect. Elf before Tolkien did indeed include beautiful human people all the way down to dwarves depending on the culture and the different cultures had a shared etymology for the word coming from Aelfr/Alfr etc. the word Orc also has etymological antecedents, including as Orc, and the derivative word was Orcus, a name for Hades as lord of Hell and the word Orca, or demon. Orc itself, simple google search on this, was ferocious sea creature and orcneas was Old English for “monster”. Encyclopedia Brittanica says Orc also is from the Italian word for Ogre… Orco. So was it Middle English? No but Tolkien was a man obsessed with etymology and languages and he did not create the word. He appropriated it for his “monsters”. And since we’ve lost the classical education popular in his time our arrogance assumes people in that time didn’t make the connection that the word Orc indicated monster. Just like we don’t make the connection that goblin also means a type of faerie and and elf is also a type of faerie. [/QUOTE]

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