Gandalf is a maia – not a maiar

Okay, I know this is not a big thing and it is alright to make mistakes but this really bothers me. It should not bother me, but it does.

It is no surprise a lot of people do not know the singular and plural forms of words in Tolkien's universe. Why would they? It is obviously not something that would be considered necessary knowledge and since the books were written in English it would be reasonable to think that "maiar" is the singular form and that you simply add an -s suffix to make it plural. Clearly this does not work as most names in Tolkien's works are not English. To sort this out I made a small list with some of the words where these errors are common.

Singular – plural
Ainu – Ainur
Maia – Maiar
Vala – Valar
Istar – Istari
Palantír – Palantíri
Nazgûl – Nazgûl
Mûmak – Mûmakil

These forms are correct, use them!

Furthermore, you should not talk of a single creature as "uruk-hai" as the word "hai" refers to the species, just like "olog-hai". And finally, do not use "mellons" as the plural form of "friend". According to David Salo (author of A Gateway to Sindarin) the plural form should be "mellyn".

Tolkien Movie Review

Tolkien (2019) is a biographical drama about the life of young J.R.R. Tolkien. It was written by David Gleeson and Stephen Beresford and directed by Dome Karukoski. None of these were known to me prior to this film, which can be a good thing as you don't have any other works to form your expectations. To be quite honest, I didn't have high hopes for this movie and I was unfortunately not happily surprised.

According to The Guardian, The Tolkien Estate did not in any way participate in, or even approve the making of this movie. They also stated that they do not endorse its content, and their response was even backed up by John Garth (author of Tolkien and the Great War, which I highly recommend) who expects that the movie will give rise to "new misconceptions".