|
Ok. Let's say Breakfast, second breakfast, dinner, tea, second dinner, & supper - & we get 'six square meals a day'.
Finally, to get back to my initial post – I was attempting to show how 'lunch' 'felt' wrong, & being in a hurry threw out a few suggestions as to options which might sound better. Being picked up on that I attempted to develop the argument, & show why. That developed into a discussion on the rightness or wrongness of 'lunch'. I think I've shown that 'lunch' is a middle-class Victorian neologism, & its usage would smack of 'putting on airs' to the majority of Hobbits ('Battle Gardens' is thrown out in favour of 'New Row' for the same reason).
What we can say is that the translator/narrator may use lunch & dinner interchangeably. Pippin may also use them interchangeably, but no other character does. Other characters use 'dinner' in every case & Merry uses 'lunch' in the only example we have of him referring to said meal.
Hence, Hobbits don't have 'lunch' – unless they are young men about town putting on airs (as they did in choosing to wear their armour around the Shire long after Sharkey & his ruffians had been dispatched). What you're missing is that their use of 'lunch' is deliberate on Tolkien's part in portraying their characters. It's precisely because Hobbits in general don't 'do lunch' that its significant that Merry & Pippin do.
|