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I am surprised to see how nothing has been written concerning the fact that Tolkien was born in the Republic of South Africa. It does show Bloemfontein but more could've been mentioned to that effect. Why do people mostly want to associate Africa with disease, starvation, and just poverty? The writer obviously benefitted SOMETHING from Africa. The article must be edited to show a clearer picture. 45.215.254.1 (talk) 19:06, 11 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for the thoughts. He left SA when still very young. Some scholars have suggested that Shelob the giant spider owes something to a childhood memory (covered over there); otherwise there is little that could possibly be mentioned here. Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:11, 11 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The article currently says The scholar Tom Shippey refers to Tolkien as one of the authors of the 20th century and one of the most influential authors of all time. That Tolkien was "one of the authors of the 20th century" is of course correct (if trivial), but it seems pretty obvious that Shippey made a more specific statement than that. Ping Chiswick Chap who might know what was intended. TompaDompa (talk) 15:27, 11 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Shippey's phrase was "author of the century", implying somewhat boldly that he was the Muhammad Ali of fiction writers. I guess someone had a go at toning this down and came up with the current incomprehensible waffle. I'll put it back but please feel free to rephrase it, intelligibly, as you like. Chiswick Chap (talk) 16:46, 11 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
How was Tolkien in the Battle of the Somme, which started in July, 1917, but then caught trench fever and was invalided to England in 1916? The date of his returning to England must be wrong. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.117.148.98 (talk) 04:16, 30 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The Battle of the Somme occurred from 1 July to 18 November in 1916. JRRT was invalided back to England on 8 November 1916. There's no contradiction. Deor (talk)
I have just checked the Bank of England inflation calculator (as currently linked from this article) and it tells me that £190,577 in 1973 is equivalent to £2,007,606.89 today - which is not the value currently used in the article against that cite.
The Bank of England website itself indicates that inflation calculations based on the Consumer Price Index (which it provides) may not be appropriate for all purposes, and refers to the site Measuring Worth, which gives a wide variety of possible bases for calculations. One of these is 'Real Wage or Real Wealth', which gives an equivalent value for Tolkien's probate (in 2023 - perhaps they use end-of-year figures and haven't done 2024 yet?) of £2,911,000, which is *Ta-daaa* what the {{Inflation}} template produces.