Middle-earth Madness and all the fun that implies, is soon to be released to fans of J.R.R. Tolkien everywhere. Readers and moviegoers will be able to vote as we pit character vs. character in a showdown to determine the 2012 Middle-earth character champion.
In the spirit of the U.S.’ NCAA college basketball tournament, known as March Madness, we will create matchups that pit the likes of Gollum vs. Treebeard and Boromir vs. Balin. Unlike the NCAA bracket, ours will be a 32 team showdown. Using voting fan input and finally our own selection committee.
And, because there are hundreds of great characters across the Middle-earth catalog, we know not everybody’s favorite character can fit in a field of 32 and just like in the NCAA tournament, some deserving characters may not get in. (Unlike the basketball tournament however, all of the characters are fictional and none will have his or her feelings hurt and they all have “next year” to be a contender.) So, we hope you will join us for our voting and enjoy Middle-earth Madness! The Bracket will be revealed soon!
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We’ve gotten a lot of great reaction to yesterday’s reveal of our Today in Middle-earth Calendar and want to share a quick update for those of you looking to add it to your feed or Apple’s iCal. For iCal, simply click on this link and the calendar will be automatically added to your iCal application (from there you can share it on your iPHone, etc). When we make updates to the calendar they should automatically populate your calendar as well. If you are looking for a XML feed of this calendar, click here. [XML Feed] [iCal Download] [TIME Calendar]
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Today we are proud to formally announce a new feature on TheOneRing.net called ‘T.I.M.E.’ – the Today in Middle-earth Calendar! Created as a Google calendar (so you can subscribe, set reminders and share) we hope this calendar will serve as your one-stop reference point for Middle-earth events on any given day of the year. From The Hobbit to The Lord of the Rings and beyond, we’ve got significant events galore. But wait…there’s more! The project does not simply tell you about the event, it also links you to discussion threads on our very own forums, allow you to discuss the history of Middle-earth with over 7500+ of your closest Tolkien fanatic friends. This calendar came together thanks to the extremely hard work of staffers Magpie, Grammaboodawg and Kelvarhin. So dive on it, and make it a habit to check our Today in Middle-earth Calendar! [TIME Calendar]
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Back in 2001, I wrote Glossopoeia for Fun and Profit (also reprinted in The People’s Guide to J.R.R. Tolkien), for our Green Books department, in which I discussed three examples of invented languages: Esperanto, Elvish, and Klingon. For those who found that necessarily brief article of interest, University of Indiana linguistics professor Michael Adams has now edited a new book, From Elvish to Klingon: Exploring Invented Languages (Oxford University Press, 2011), comprising eight essays (including his a general introductory essay by Adams) about linguistic invention, though not precisely the “invented languages” suggested by the book’s title, as we will see. Each essay is accompanied by an appendix by Adams that extends or clarifies some aspect of the essay.
Adams’s introductory chapter deals with the spectrum of linguistic invention, and considers the motivations for such inventions. He considers whether invented languages are an attempt to re-create “the language of Adam”, i.e., a perfected language as spoken by Adam before the fall (it appears that Adams takes the Biblical texts quite literally here), and considers slang and poetry as examples of human linguistic creativity; Adams is the author of Slang: The People’s Poetry(Oxford Press, 2009).
Continue reading “Michael Adams — From Elvish to Klingon: Exploring Invented Languages”
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If you have followed the history of TheOneRing.net, you know that Oscar season has a special meaning to us and our community. In the early 2000s, we were privileged enough to host three memorable events in Los Angeles: 2002’s ‘The One Party;’ 2003’s ‘Two Towers One Party;’ and 2004’s ‘The Return of the One Party.’ The last party, which corresponded with The Return of the King winning 11 Academy Awards, was such a success the LA Times called it ‘The hottest bash in town’ on Oscar Night. [LA Times] After the break, you can see a video of some highlights from that event. [Video] We are very excited to announce that we will be holding another party on Oscar night 2013 – ‘The One Expected Party.’ Like our previous events, we are making this a fan-centered celebration of all things Middle-earth, but also a celebration of the release of ‘The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.’ Even if no nominations are awarded to the first Hobbit film, the party will still take place! The planning and coordination to get the party going has been quite significant and is already in motion, however we would love to get your ideas and insight via the following form. If you have any interest in the party, please take a couple of minutes and submit the form below. Thank you for your participation and we will be updating you along the way as prepare for Oscar night 2013. In the meantime, enjoy this year’s Academy Awards on Sunday.
Continue reading “Do you have plans Oscar Night 2013? Join us for ‘The One Expected Party’”
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In the US, tournament frenzy hits every March with the onset of the NCAA’s Men’s Basketball March Madness tournament. We thought this year would be a good opportunity for the entire Tolkien community to participate in a special tournament of our own. So without further delay we are announcing the Middle-earth Madness Tournament! The goal is to settle, once and for all, which character is favored most by Tolkien fans worldwide. To start off the process, the staff at TheOneRing.net compiled a list of 46 finalists. We need to weed this list down to 32 total contestants. To do that, we are going to ask you to vote for up to three characters in the poll below. Voting will be open until Feb 29th at Noon ET. We will then compile the results and create our tournament bracket with seeding based on total votes. It should be noted, much like the men’s basketball tournament in, our Middle-earth Madness selection committee does reserve the right to adjust results a bit in the spirit of competition. (and like the men’s basketball committee, some of the decisions are sure to be controversial!!) So without further delay, let the voting begin!
Continue reading “Announcing The Middle-earth March Madness Tournament!”
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