Greetings to my unseen lectors. Today I note, for posterity and my stylesheet, the forms of a word that will surely perplex my dear copyeditor in the not-too-distant future.

Komen = knight, [common usage]
Komenara = company [or meisne] of knights
Komentai = Knight, Sir [respectful, usually inferior to superior]
Komentai'a = [plural and singular] company of knights, any number [respectful, usually inferior to superior]
Alakomentai = Knight-commander, leader of a komentai'a
Alakomentai'ia = [plural form] Knights-Commander, leaders of komentai'a


And the root word, komen -- which was Old Elvish - didn't really mean "Commander" or anything like it. It meant -- as close as you could come to it in non-Elvish -- "Brotherhood." Try to translate the whole thing, and what you got -- besides a headache -- was "the servant of the Brotherhood."

Every writer of long series' must keep a concordance or risk falling into grievous error in later volumes. I thought you might be entertained by this page from my notebook.
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