Re: Anachronisms in LOTR

"Douglas Eckhart" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
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>
> "Bill O'Meally" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > "RufusTFirefly" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> > news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> >
> > > 'Tobacco' is never mentioned in 'LotR'.  You might suppose that
> > 'pipe-weed'
> > > is tobacco, but you might also be wrong.
> > >
> >
> > Yes it is. Re-read 'Flotsam and Jetsam'. Longbottom leaf is described as
> > tobacco.
> > --
> > Bill
>
> Ah, but thats just the modern equivlent term used in the translation.

A thing that has always puzzled me is how Indian terms like tobacco and
potato got into Westron....

Okay, it hasn't always puzzled me. I never gave a damn the first 25 times I
read the trilogy.


> PS tea is old world, I can assure you. Unfortunalty, trade links with
China
> were cut with the downfall of Constantinople.
>
> Douglas

I'd love to see your evidence that Chinese tea was among the items imported
to Europe through Constantinople before 1453.

Too, not to get O.T. or anything, Constantinople's loss certainly didn't
much damage trade. The trade through Egypt and Syria was not affected by the
event at all, and the Italian ciites had been trading with the Mamelukes for
two centuries by this point. (This trade was about the only thing still
propping up the Mameluke state by this point, and in 1513 the Turks had had
enough of them and marched into Egypt. But they had no motive to damage the
Red Sea trading routes. It was the Portuguese who blocked that for them.)

Tsar Parmathule