Back in the nineteen twenties, J. R. R. Tolkien was creating Elvish and building middle earth. For a long time his nomenclature was fluid. He flirted with the name gnome for the creatures we know as elves. In those days nobody had a clear idea of what a gnome was, or what it looked like. Tolkien dumped that idea in the thirties when it became fashionable to stick gnome statues into English gardens. Those ugly things—identical to the modern garden gnome—were a far cry from what Tolkien had in mind. So he called Elrond and his buddies elves.