[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by davem

Not following this line of argument. Noakes refers to 'dinner' as an evening meal. Hobbits have two dinners when they can get them. Where supper comes into it I'm not sure. I will say though that 'supper' is often used to refer to a very light meal taken just before bed, & one wouldn't usually go out after supper - that's not a rule though.

Your ever-evolving argument, while fascinating, is becoming very convoluted. You have a set perception of what you'd 'like' to see as Tolkien's implication; however, I believe that any reasonable person who is not trying to cast a certain light on the text would see the terminology varies and does not remain constant from a societal standpoint. Let's review your argument:

Originally Posted by davem

'Nuncheon' might work for a midday meal, but Hobbits would have Dinner at mid-day. Breakfast, dinner, tea, supper. That's what Tolkien's models in Warwickshire & Berkshire would call them. Hobbits, in short, never, ever have 'lunch'.

This was you first assertion. You were adamant that there was no 'lunch' at mid-day but rather dinner. Then you clearly emphasize that supper is the final meal.

Originally Posted by davem

I grew up among the English working class, & my whole family without exception were of the English working class, & I can tell you that at mid-day the English working class, certainly up to very recent years, have 'dinner' at mid-day, not 'lunch'.

Again, dinner at midday.

Originally Posted by davem

Now, unless you want to argue that Pippin, thinking he has missed breakfast, is expecting the next meal to be an evening 'dinner' (ie that he is planning on going from nine in the morning to six or seven in the evening without food) one has to assume that he is thinking of the meal that follows breakfast - which is not 'lunch', apparently, but 'dinner'.

Dinner has now supplanted both lunch and supper; in fact you have abandoned supper altogether as it does not fit from your original model, even though you maintain that Pippin, as a 'middle-class dandie' should be using the term 'lunch' as he does elsewhere.

Originally Posted by davem

I implied it was a middle class term (or upper middle class). The fact that to you as an American the terms are interchangeable & to me as an English person they are not is the whole point. To you a rural working class Hobbit like the Gaffer having 'lunch' is perfectly fine. To me it would stick out like a sore thumb & feel wrong - because I know how rural English folk speak./

From the previous quote, you yourself maintain that Pippin implied 'dinner' was in fact 'lunch' (as in a mid-day meal). Pippin uses the term interchangeably. The term 'dinner' was used as a late evening meal (moonlight) by the rustic Old Noakes, which you insist is 'second dinner' (even though Noakes makes no such distinction), which goes directly against your original posit that all lower class Englishmen would refer to the meal after tea as supper.

Originally Posted by davem

Sorry, but an English ear will pick up on subtleties of speech & terminology which a non English ear will not. You can argue about the interchangeability of lunch/dinner & dinner/supper till the cows come home. I accept that a new M-e novel which treated those terms (& others) as interchangeable would not cause a problem for non English readers. I'm just telling you that for English readers they would jar.

You refuse to see the interchangeability that is evident in the text and which you have brought up yourself. Your own bias has clouded your ability to ascertain that there is no absolute in this discussion; therefore, I am bowing out of this aspect of the thread.