By Jlong

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2 Jan, 2020
2020-1-2 3:22:53 AM UTC

I was wondering if any of you might be able to help me decipher whether this excerpt from a Tolkien letter reads "the attempt to meet on Mondays instead of Tuesdays is not wholly successful" or "the attempt to meet on Monday instead of Tuesday is not wholly successful."

Sorry about the quality of the image--it is the only one I have.

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Eorl the Young
Home away from home

2 Jan, 2020
2020-1-2 3:54:31 AM UTC

It would help to see more of the letter to get context.

But the previous sentence talks about “weekends” (plural), so following from that, I would assume the words in question are “Mondays” and “Tuesdays”.

Speaking as an amateur with little to no knowledge of Tolkien’s letters and deciphering his handwriting.

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Stu

2 Jan, 2020
2020-1-2 6:50:53 AM UTC

I'm going with singular, but with a better copy of the letter, I might think otherwise.

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Deagol

2 Jan, 2020
2020-1-2 9:30:13 AM UTC

It looks like he has moved from plural to singular halfway through the sentence, so 'Mondays' and 'Tuesday'.

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Aelfwine

2 Jan, 2020
2020-1-2 2:01:54 PM UTC

It reads:

"though ^he is often here at week-ends, the attempt to meet on Mondays instead of Tuesday is not wholly successful."

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Trotter

2 Jan, 2020
2020-1-2 2:44:31 PM UTC

I'd agree with Aelfwine and Deagol, Tolkien did not spend much time on writing the letter s

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onthetrail
Home away from home

2 Jan, 2020 (edited)
2020-1-2 3:23:19 PM UTC

Trotter wrote:
I'd agree with Aelfwine and Deagol, Tolkien did not spend much time on writing the letter s

I agree with Aelfwine also and Trotter's point is one I have seen in many of his letters.

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Jlong

2 Jan, 2020
2020-1-2 4:35:39 PM UTC

Thanks everyone. You guys wouldn't consider that tiny mark/dot after "Tuesday" an "s"?

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Deagol

2 Jan, 2020
2020-1-2 6:52:39 PM UTC

Today, with fresh eyes and after looking at some scans of his letters, I can read it as 'Tuesdays', with the blob on the right arm of the 'y' being the 's'.

From the few examples I could find, his approach to writing 'ys' was variable, presumably depending on whether he was rushing at the time.

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Aelfwine

2 Jan, 2020
2020-1-2 11:17:13 PM UTC

Tolkien's word-final "s"-es are often only a curving dip (as in Greek and at times the tengwar) — sometimes even word-internal too — and sometimes a barely-marked appendage. I hope soon to publish something that will illustrate this and many other challenging aspects of Tolkien's handwriting.

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