<story><title>Tolkien Snubs a German Publisher Asking for Proof of His “Aryan Descent” (1938)</title><url>http://www.openculture.com/2014/04/j-r-r-tolkien-snubs-a-german-publisher.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>leorocky</author><text>I wish people still wrote so eloquently in their everyday correspondence. It seems like the further you go back in time the more beautiful the language used to be. Some of the letters back and forth during the American Revolution were very nice, like between John and Abigail Adams. Going back further the letters between Erasmus and Thomas Moore were also very nicely written. Now it&amp;#x27;s all emoticons and lol.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Tloewald</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s a tad harsh to hold up the letters of the famous and learned in comparison with today&amp;#x27;s average missive. There are plenty of eloquent letters still being written, just not by the average Joe or Juanita:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/02/i-dont-enjoy-this-war-one-bit.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.lettersofnote.com&amp;#x2F;2012&amp;#x2F;02&amp;#x2F;i-dont-enjoy-this-war-o...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m happy to discover that Tolkien, unlike so many of his respected contemporaries, and despite having become famous for writing a trilogy that seems -- at minimum -- naively racist, seems in no way an anti-semite.</text></comment>
<story><title>Tolkien Snubs a German Publisher Asking for Proof of His “Aryan Descent” (1938)</title><url>http://www.openculture.com/2014/04/j-r-r-tolkien-snubs-a-german-publisher.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>leorocky</author><text>I wish people still wrote so eloquently in their everyday correspondence. It seems like the further you go back in time the more beautiful the language used to be. Some of the letters back and forth during the American Revolution were very nice, like between John and Abigail Adams. Going back further the letters between Erasmus and Thomas Moore were also very nicely written. Now it&amp;#x27;s all emoticons and lol.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jmilkbal</author><text>Language was also less ambiguous because they didn&amp;#x27;t leave out important punctuation or relative pronouns. I expected Tolkien to be a on Hitler&amp;#x27;s side because I interpreted the title as &amp;quot;Tolkien Snubs a German Publisher, Asking for Proof of His “Aryan Descent&amp;quot;, but the author means &amp;quot;Tolkien Snubs a German Publisher Who Asked for Proof of His “Aryan Descent&amp;quot;. Writing ain&amp;#x27;t what it used to be, even if only the clergy and royalty could do it!</text></comment>