One of my favorite books is The Lord of the Rings… but The Hobbit (the shorter volume about Bilbo Baggins that J.R.R. Tolkien wrote first) is pretty good too, of course.
In an effort to raise greater awareness of Tolkien and another of my interests (pointing out grammar mistakes), may I present the following parody of a particular poem/song in Chapter 1 of The Hobbit. In the original poem, the dwarves are teasing Bilbo about the awful things that he’s afraid they’ll do to his poor crockery and tableware.
Here’s my version.
Thereupon the twelve dwarves—not Thorin, he was too important, and stayed talking to Gandalf—jumped to their feet, and grabbed paper and quills and pencils and ink. Off they went, not bothering to consider the rules of grammar, scribbling out essays and stories and poems, and even a play or two, while the hobbit looked over their shoulders, almost squeaking with fright: “please be careful!” and “please, the rules of grammar and style are really quite important!” But the dwarves only started to sing:
Make English teachers quite irate;
Strike all of Strunk and White’s advice!
That’s what Bilbo Baggins hates—
Don’t forget a comma splice!
Split infinitives and misspell “friend”!
Sentence fragments are yours to tout!
Make passive voice into a trend;
Leave the Oxford comma out!
End sentences with “of” and “toward”!
Leave dangling participles everywhere!
And when you’ve finished, if you’re still bored,
Mix up “they are,” “their,” and “there”!
That’s what Bilbo Baggins hates—
So don’t! please don’t! misspell “eight”!
And of course they did all of these dreadful things, for they were dwarves and had very a poor understanding of grammar.
Now, go read The Hobbit. It’s really quite a good book. 🙂
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