LotR Word Count?

Does anyone know what the LotR word count is? I have worked it out to be around 480k of words, but my friend has some wierd obesseion that all three volumes are around 100k. Is that just unrealistic or what?!

I've been wondering this myself for a long time I've worked out roughly that the Fellowship of the Ring is approx. 130k words so the full set is around 400k+. Stupid internet gives me a load of rubbish when I ask for word counts on some novels so I generally estimate it at 250 words on a page x the number of pages.

I just sent the question to AQA (63336) and the sent back:

"There are 1, 184 pages in the complet 'The Lord of the Rings' trilogy of books with a total word count of approximately 639, 360."

Wow!

Wow, thats a lot, more than I had actually had expected I could never write that much. The one way I think Tolkien gets through it is by making it chatty. Its shameful but I've only read up to the end of Strider in the Fellowship and so far I've found that there is a lot of light hearted conversation and a lot of unneeded information although I do enjoy reading dialogue much more than description that is endless.

Tolkien did a great job with description and dialogue... but imagine how much time he spent on LotR.

Did you know that he created an entire new language for the Elves? Some friends of mine have a dictionary for it, and it's a few hundred pages long.

Seriously, it's about as long as a Webster's dictionary I had. I guess he made a new word for all of our words. I've come up with some little languages, but usually just the alphabet... I can't imagine actually created a whole new language.

And if you want to add more to that, remember that the Hobbit and the Silmarillion are also in the series.

Still, that's a lot of words.

Jamon

Ye. I have the Hobbit and Silmarillon, but haven't got round to reading them yet.

MARK

I've read the Hobbit numerous times... the other is very complicated--I haven't finished it yet....

There are a lot of names... and places... and events... and dates... it's like a history book!

Silmarillion? It is a history book! It's like the nonfiction of Middle Earth. Seriously, it starts with the creation of the world and of all the species, and things that are like Angels, and then it talks about Melkor, who's basically the devil, and he creates demons... etc. It's the history of Middle Earth.

Practically, ye. lol, You can tell he was a Christian.

Was he? I thought so... but still, you don't have to be a Christian to know about the stories...

(Who all on here is Christian??)

Well, no but still!

A language isn't very difficult to create although it is if you understand my meaning. I find my self spewing out a random load of rubbish and usually there is one word I like and write it down as a word that I will use and over time it develops into a workable language. But of course you have to have consistency such as in my novice language, "kk = ing", so in every word with ing I must have "kk" at the end. The rest eventually follows, one thing I find disheartening though is that he was a professor of English. This makes people think that you have to be a professor to write and get noticed when you simply don't. I'm not really amazing at English but I'm happy with what I write and you don't have to be a genius to write what you feel is right.

As for the Christian thing, I'm atheist, although I find the stories in religions amusing and sometimes helps me with my stories for example the Creation of Anir mimics both the Big Bang theory and the Christian story of creation. But anyway thats besides the point.

I really must read the Middle Earth collection but at the moment I've got too much to do. I've got tonnes of revision to do, write my novel, eat, sleep, do homework, do art courseowrk (which takes like forever) and I hardly have any time to do things I like doing. I like the Hobbit though, it was so simple and a relaxing book, you could just drift into it and by the time you know it you've finished it.

Ye, I love The Hobbit I jsut can't find the book!

Christian all the way! Technically, I'm a Lutheran, but it's still Christian. I absolutely loved LotR, the way that Tolkien described things was amazing. I think that Tolkien wasn't an English professor, but a professor of languages, which was why he was able to create several different languages. Some of the languages he developed before he even wrote LotR. He really was a creative guy, to be able to basically write a fantasy "Bible" (Dear God, please, don't strike me down with lightning for that...). I've read LotR and the Hobbit, but I was never able to get past the third chapter for the Silmarillion. It had way, way to much Old English for me, so I was like, "...Huh?" And the art that goes with those books is absolutely incredible. If you go to www.john-howe.com you can see some of the art from John Howe, who was one of the conceptional artists for the movie. Another good LotR artwork site is http://fan.theonering.net/middleearthtours/ ; this place will show you just about anything LotR artwork.

Okay, I'm done rambling!

Namárie!

Aack! Just found this hilarious video on Yahoo!, of all places! You gotta see this!

http://overview.mail.yahoo.com/featured_video

That video is great.

lol that was hilarious and of course Frodo had a car xD

I'm guessing I need sound for it? *Stupid comp!!!*

No not really, but it's cooler with sound.

Ah... well, I'll wait 'til I have a comp with sound.