Did JRRT encourage new ME stories?

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by davem

The point at issue is whether Tolkien would have considered lunch & dinner to be interchangeable. I say he wouldn't - 'cos he was English. And, as I've stated, Hobbits have 'dinner twice a day when they can get it' so an evening dinner does not preclude a mid day dinner - in fact it requires a mid day dinner - unless they have two dinners at night. Thus, as I stated, Breakfast, second breakfast, first dinner, tea, second dinner, supper - if Hobbits have 'six' meals a day & two of them are breakfasts, two dinners, & there is a tea & a supper in there then tehre's no room for 'lunch'. Tolkien specifically states 'two dinners'.

Give it up, Davem, please. I find it interesting that you would quote the 'narrator' regarding the single mention of 'dinner twice a day if they can get it', and ignore the several uses of the term lunch from said narrator. You have continually discounted the narrator's mention of anything contradicting your beliefs. Oh, as a matter of fact, here's your quote:

Originally Posted by Davem

Lunch is not 'featured prominently in the text' – it is used by three characters – once by Pippin, twice by Merry & once by Gimli – the other times it appears it is used by the narrator/translator- which may tell us a great deal about the narrator/translator but little about Hobbits.

What it tells me is that the narrator used lunch and dinner and dinner and supper interchangeably; therefore, you can't alight on the single white poppy in a whole field of red ones and say, 'Hah! All poppies are white!'

I will ask a third time, in fact I will post the same request I posted the first two times:

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.

Anything else is conjecture on your part and cannot be verified. Also, please forego outside sources that have no bearing on the text. Your original claim that Hobbits would not use the term 'lunch' has already been proven false, and you have yet to prove that dinner and lunch are not interchangeable. I have provided ample proofs that they indeed are interchangeable (and in addition to 'lunch' being an 'official' meal of Bilbo's birthday party, there is also "Folco went home after lunch" with Frodo). What it comes down to is 'lunch' is indeed a term used by Hobbits, and therefore is acceptable in a fan-fic or a new revisualization of Middle-earth.

If you'd like to discuss something that has an actual bearing on class distinctions among Hobbits (and there were many and easily discernible and textually provable), then please drop this farcical argument.

[Thenamir]

Forget wings...do Balrogs have 'lunch'? That's what this debate has become. Rather than discuss the thread topic, we digress into whatever controversy best facilitates argument without resolution, continued restatements and rehashings of tired points, seldom even dressed in new verbage. Please forgive me for interjecting my thoughts, and getting in the way of a good row.

[davem]

http://www.putlearningfirst.com/lang...al/dinner.html

[Estelyn Telcontar]

At this point, this discussion is generating more heat than light. I am therefore temporarily closing the thread to give participants time to reread the beginning pages and remember what the actual topic is. It would also be nice if the interim could be used for finding other threads or starting new, interesting discussions that will provide us all with real food for thought.

Either that, or you may use this commercial break to have breakfast, lunch, a snack, dinner, supper, or whatever you choose to call the intake of edibles at this or any other time of day in yours or any other country!

[skip spence]

I once worked with an English bloke called Ben and when he called his mid day meal "dinner" I was quite perplexed as that term, as for me at that time I thought it solely referred to an evening meal. When I asked him why he called lunch dinner he said that where he came from (which sadly I can't remember, though he'd spent most of his adult life in London) dinner is the main meal of the day, regardless of whether it's taken around noon, or in mid- or late evening. He didn't mention any class distinctions but perhaps he intentionally avoided the issue or thought me too foreign to understand.

Sorry, I just killed a few hours reading this old thread and boy did they fly by.

I'd love to discuss the original subject too at some point.

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by skip spence

I'd love to discuss the original subject too at some point.

Certainly, Skip. Let's talk over lunch some time.

[skip spence]

Originally Posted by Morthoron

Certainly, Skip. Let's talk over lunch some time.

Oh, don't be so posh!

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by skip spence

Oh, don't be so posh!

I'm sorry, I just can't help it. I am l33t.