# Attercop! Attercop!?



## Evenstar373 (May 21, 2003)

what in the word is an Attercop ???please help me!!!!!!!


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## Celebthôl (May 21, 2003)

im guessing a word that spiders hate...maybe a spider repelant


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## Elendil3119 (May 21, 2003)

Quoting FoolOfATook from another thread:


> Attercop derives from the Old English word "at(t)orcoppa and the Middle English word "atter-cop(pe). It loosely translates as something like "posion-head".


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## Dragon (May 21, 2003)

and that's offensive?

hmmm....


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## Celebthôl (May 21, 2003)

apparently so


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## Theoden_king (May 22, 2003)

To spiders it seems but I don't think anyone else would find it too offensive!


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## Lantarion (May 22, 2003)

What about "Tom-noddy" and the other insults Bilbo flung at the spiders? 
I always found them really funny, and how he could insult the heck out of them while running for his life.


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## Evenstar373 (May 22, 2003)

I have asked people about it but the best anser I ever got(and the only one) Was it might have been the kind of spider that they were but that would not be an insulte it would be like yelling Human! Human! at someone.


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## Elendil3119 (May 22, 2003)

Again quoting FoAT:


> Lob is derived from the Old English "loppe" and "lobbe". The name Shelob simply translates as "Female Spider".
> 
> "Cob" probably comes from the word "cobweb", but it might be worth noting that George Macdonald's _The Princess_ and the Goblin, one of the works that Tolkien certainly had in mind as he wrote _The Hobbit_ uses the word "Cob" to mean Goblin.
> 
> All of this information comes from the indescribably useful _Annotated Hobbit_ (Revised Edition), by Douglas A. Anderson.



EDIT: Just realized that didn't include "Tom-noddy".  I guess one of us will just have to go by _The Annotated Hobbit_..


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## Dragon (May 22, 2003)

I have that version, but I dont remember seeing that in it.....

I'll check for some info when I get home

* is at school in her mom's classroom on a terrible computer*


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## FoolOfATook (May 22, 2003)

_The Annotated Hobbit_ saves the day again!



> _The Oxford English Dictionary_ defines _tomnoddy_ as 'a foolish or stupid person."


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## Lantarion (May 23, 2003)

Haha, that reminds of the part in "Good Will Hunting" when the British psychiatrist uses the word "tomfoolery"..


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## Evenstar373 (May 30, 2003)

does that book have anything about Attercop?


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## Lantarion (May 31, 2003)

> does that book have anything about Attercop?


Uh, sorry, what?
Attercop is an 'insult' directed towards the spiders in the Hobbit..


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## Evenstar373 (May 31, 2003)

i know but what does it mean ( if i has a meaning)


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## Lantarion (May 31, 2003)

You know, you really should read the entire thread before you post your own thoughts! The asnwer to your question is thirteen posts above this one; take a look.


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## Evenstar373 (Jun 1, 2003)

I have read the whole thread i started it i have been away and just havent read it over in a while i will try to make my post make more since


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## Lantarion (Jun 1, 2003)

Well I guess you didn't read it very well then.


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## Holly (Jun 4, 2003)

Here is a meaning I have found...

Attercop
Anglo Saxon: attercoppa a spider; atter = poison + coppa = head, cup

1. A spider. [Obsolete.] 

2. A peevish, ill-natured person. [North of England.]


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## Licky Linguist (Nov 18, 2020)

Attercopus is a sort of spider, so...


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## Ealdwyn (Nov 19, 2020)

Holly said:


> Here is a meaning I have found...
> 
> Attercop
> Anglo Saxon: attercoppa a spider; atter = poison + coppa = head, cup
> ...


I love it when people bump these old threads - this is interesting.

Although despite hailing from the North of England myself, I've never heared the expression.


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## Olorgando (Nov 19, 2020)

Ealdwyn said:


> I love it when people bump these old threads - this is interesting.
> 
> Although despite hailing from the North of England myself, I've never heared the expression.


Remember that JRRT was writing most of TH about 90 years ago (publication is also 83 years distant by now).
And he had a lifelong sympathy for northern England from his time at Leeds 1920-25.
Not surprisingly considering his professional (and private) interests, he also was quite interested on the northern English dialects (which then shade over into the southern Scottish (English, not Celtic!) dialects). And one characteristic of dialects is that they preserve archaic terms - though often a bit "mutated" - that have gone out of use in the "high language".
I certainly have heard and again and again that in post-WW II schooling (at least in the cities) dialects were looked down on and discouraged, sometimes in families too. Just off the cuff I've heard this about the Cologne, Berlin, Franconian, Bavarian, Swabian, Hessian and Saxonian dialects. So time and official disapproval has very likely eroded use of such archaic terms. Dialects were still more wide-spread in small-town, rural areas, but I wonder what the wide-spread use of the Internet will do to that (it *has* caused a serious deterioration of spelling by those without access to a spellchecker).


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