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Originally Posted by davem
What kind of characters would throw around neologisms? Bilbo, Frodo, & the other Hobbits don't say 'lunch', they say 'dinner'. Anyone who can't see that the use of such a neologism by two young men about town is significant is missing a very interesting bit of social commentary on Tolkien's part.
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*The Dark Elf feels himself drawn ineluctably back into the digression*
Cannot...help...myself...must...reply...BAH!
You are again incorrect. Totally. Utterly. By your reasoning, Frodo and Bilbo would certainly use the term 'lunch' because the Bagginses (Bilbo and Frodo specifically) are indeed of the same social caste as the Brandybucks and Tooks. They are 'respectable' hobbits, and their speech pathology bears it out (there are neither colorful rustic colloquialisms, nor malaprops, nor droppin' o' the 'aitches in either Frodo or Bilbo's speech). They're family is married into both the Took and Brandybuck families (first cousins, I believe), and are most certainly part of the squirearchy of the Shire.
Frodo and Bilbo bear all the earmarks of English Country gentlemen, and they certainly do not stoop to manual labor (which is what the Gaffer and Sam are for). The entire relationship between Frodo and 'his' Sam bears that out. Sam is the batman or valet to Frodo's Subaltern, a point which cannot be argued because Tolkien refers to it himself. By your convoluted miasma of rambling rhetoric, the term 'lunch' is then totally acceptable for the narrator of the story because Frodo and Bilbo wrote the bulk of the Book of Westmarch.
And please supply a direct quote from any Hobbit character of the lower classes that uses the term 'dinner' for a midday meal. You won't find it, and neither will you find a reference to 'lunch' or 'supper'. The absence of something does not prove you are correct. The only reference to a lower class Hobbit using the term 'dinner' is Old Noakes and that was concerning a meal in the moonlight.
You continue to make glaring errors due mostly to your class biases.
And now for something completely different:
Is the BD Fan-fiction forum for all intents and purposes dead? I posted an offering there starting a week ago, and have not received one scathing review regarding my impudence as an American to dare to add my scant and colonial abilities to the Middle-earth cosmology. Granted, since the tale does not concern hobbits there are no mentions of lunch or dinner, nevertheless (
and harkening back to the original premise of the thread), I am wondering if such work that is not wedded to an RPG format is welcomed here any longer.
Oh, and the story can be found here...
http://forum.barrowdowns.com/cgi-bin...107&p=1#000001
...your comments and critiques are welcome.