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USAGE: Luncheon (was: Bostonites. *ZAP*)

From:John Cowan <cowan@...>
Date:Monday, March 15, 1999, 17:17
Nik Taylor wrote:

> Reminds me of the history of the word "lunch". Borrowed from Spanish > "lunjo" ("slice") as "lunch", it originally meant "a small snack", then > came to mean a mid-day meal, and was artificially lengthened to > "luncheon".
"Luncheon" is a hybrid of "lunch" with the existing word "nuncheon", also meaning a light meal, now archaic. In _The Two Towers_, Beregond (a guardsman of Minas Tirith) uses it in explaining the meal system to Pippin: # Then there is the nuncheon, at noon or after as duties allow [...]. -- John Cowan http://www.ccil.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org You tollerday donsk? N. You tolkatiff scowegian? Nn. You spigotty anglease? Nnn. You phonio saxo? Nnnn. Clear all so! 'Tis a Jute.... (Finnegans Wake 16.5) To which I will add: It is slaking nuncheon out of some thing's brain pan.