How Do You Say…

Pronunciation. I teach two quite differently pronounced languages, Latin and French (well, three, if you count English, but MOST of my students can pronounce that okay). I also studied a bit of German, which is quite different from Romance language pronunciation, and have a working knowledge of Greek pronunciation through teaching Greek roots in Etymology class. Plus outside of school I dabbled in a bit of Welsh and Hebrew and…I suppose you could call me a philologist! I like being able to pronounce a language well; “French Diction” was my all time favorite class that I took towards my French minor as an undergrad, and I am one of the steadily growing minority of Latin teachers who insists on working some conversational Latin and oral recitation into my curriculum, just so the kids learn to pronounce it correctly – in at least two (classical and ecclesiastic) different pronunciation systems.

As such perhaps I’m hypersensitive to the correct pronunciation of words. For whatever reason, though, as I play LOTRO or read My.LOTRO blogs, I often find myself wondering -

Just how in the world do you pronounce that?

Wildore Block Party

The roleplaying township of Wildore, in the Bree-land homesteads of Landroval, held its first annual Block Party on Saturday. It was an enormous event – six hours of festivities! Lennidhren managed to partake in the whole thing, though her attention was wandering a bit in the middle.

At 6:00 the party opened with music from Cyrsei (the event organizer) and Lexxor.

Ales and Tales in Little Delving

Adelo and Giorfast, Lennidhren’s kin-Hobbits, celebrated their joint birthday last night at the Little Delving edition of Ales and Tales. It was quite a lively party!

For the Lonely Mountain Band, the evening began a little earlier with a kin meeting at which Harperella went over some of the kin customs and such. Lennidhren learned how to respond should a kinmate greet her with the traditional “Far apart…” motto:

Javelarry’s variation on the motto is duly noted, but I think Lennidhren will stick with the standard version.

Nost-na-Lothion, The Birth of Flowers

Mar Vanwa Tyalieva puts on a great concert every Saturday night in Bree, but tonight was something special. The premise of MVT’s Nost-na-Lothion celebration was taken from a brief comment of Tolkien’s about the observance of this festival in Gondolin, and from that the fine MVT folk came up with a celebration of Spring that was a joy to attend!

When Lennidhren first arrived at the Cottage of Lost Play, MVT’s kinhouse, there did seem to be a majority of Elves in attendance, but as the evening went on, all races of the free peoples came to be well represented (though I think the tall folk still had a majority…there were but a handful of Dwarves and Hobbits).

We first had music and dancing out on the lawn…

I think Lennidhren stepped on Olyver’s foot or something. Not sure why he is cowering in the next scene, actually.

Advice for New Bloggers – Forum thread

Lunna’s had a great idea to start a thread on the forums for posting tips, tutorials, advice etc. for new bloggers. At the Blogmoot we talked about developing a My.LOTRO tutorial/help pages, perhaps on the lorebook, to make it easier for people to get started posting here since the interface has quite a learning curve. However, editing the lorebook has a learning curve too, and few of us have a clue where to begin! So we can post the info on the forum thread, and then it can be compiled into lorebook entries more easily.

Advice for new bloggers – The Lord of the Rings Online™ Forums.

So please, experienced bloggers (no matter how experienced. Hey, if you’ve succeeded in making a post, you’re experienced enough to tell someone else how to do that, right?), stop by the thread and contribute any helpful tips or step by step procedures you can think of!

We Might Need a Bigger Venue for Ales and Tales.

…If Ales and Tales keeps growing like this! Harperella counted 131 people in attendance as the Sons of Numenor kinship hosted the weekly event last night. I gave up on trying to count, personally, when it was as packed as this:

Blogger Manifesto: What We Want from Turbine

Here it is, the long awaited 2nd edition of the My.LOTRO Blogger Manifesto!

Posted on the forums here. Below is a copy of the forum post. Feel free to discuss it here or in that thread. Or both; it’s probably going to be found more readily on the forums, though, for discussion from outside the current community of bloggers.

Minutes of the Spring Blogger Gathering 2010

…Heh. I feel all secretarial with a title like that!

So what exactly did we discuss at this fabled Gathering? For those of you who couldn’t make it (we still love you! And there’ll be more gatherings, never fear!), or who had trouble keeping up with the fast and furious typing of so many bloggers assembled (we type fast, having so much practice on the blogs ), here is a summary of the discussion.

Bloggers Gathered ’round the Fire

Thanks to everyone who attended the Spring Blogger Gathering last night! We had a great turnout and, I think, a very profitable and inspiring discussion. I will be writing up a report on the latter in a bit, but first, some visuals. Click for full size pictures, and you can also find the album here.

Linett welcomes early arrivals Peneladan and Kiarane to her home with pipe-weed and ale

Ales and Tales in the Hall of Fire

The Hall of Fire. What better place could there be for a friendly gathering to tell tales and sing songs than this, the place where Elrond and the Elves of Rivendell are accustomed to do just that? Ales and Tales in a pub, or a kinhall, or…a chicken farm…is always fun, but there is something so fitting and even epic about Ales and Tales at the Hall of Fire.

Gorgeous. Just stunning. Those stained glass windows…the Hall of Fire is so beautiful.