My brain at 3am instead of sleeping: The word “smog” was first used in 1905 to describe a smoke fog. At first it was specifically from the smoke that came from coal fires, though it’s come to mean many things in more recent years. The word “smog” didn’t achieve widespread use until at least the 1930s, and even moreso in the 1950s. In any case, at the time The Hobbit was written, “smog” was a known word.
My brain at 3:04am instead of sleeping: Tolkien named his dragon “Smaug,” knowing full-well that it would make sense for the name to be pronounced “smog” because it’s a fukin smoke dragon that makes fukin smoke but he decided ‘au’ needed to be pronounced like ‘ow,’ who the fuck does that. what the fuk is a smawg
My brain at 3:06am instead of sleeping: Movie makers in 2001 decided that “Sauron” was pronounced like “sore-on” instead of “Sow-ron” as Tolkien intended. Because that made fuckin sense. Yet when it came to pronouncing “Smaug,” they decided they had to go with Tolkien’s intended pronunciation EVEN THOUGH they knew the pronunciation “smog” would make more sense and infuriate fewer people
My brain at 3:10am instead of sleeping: I’m going to start pronouncing all words containing “au” with Tolkien’s pronunciation. August. Auspicious. Dinosaur. Paul. Automobile. Slaughter. Fraud. Maul.
