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

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.