It is in the Appendices, On Translation: "Peregrin Took, for instance, in his first few days in Minas Tirith used the familiar forms to people of all ranks, including the Lord Denethor himself. This may have amused the aged Steward, but it must have astonished his servants. No doubt this free use of the familiar forms helped to spread the popular rumour that Peregrin was a person of very high rank in his own country."

The whole thing was hinted not only by the title by also by Denethor on their first meeting: "'Now tell me your tale, my liege,' said Denethor, half kindly, half mockingly. 'For the words of one whom my son so befriended will be welcome indeed.'"

And of course once he was thought to be the Prince of the Halflings, it was only a small step to the rumour that every one of the Rohirrim coming to Gondor's aid would be carrying a small but doughty Halfling warrior as well.

A hobbit mayor's job is probably 90% party planning

Am I imagining that Pippin continued to call Aragorn ‘Strider’ even after the coronation?

My favorite part of the whole thing is that a rumor spread that a host of knights from Rohan would each be accompanied by a halfling warrior. 😂

I have an example of a translator thinking within the target language: In Terminator 2 a famous line oft repeated is, "Hasta la vista, baby." On the DVD version I've seen, all language tracks, except Spanish, use this phrase. The Spanish track used, "Sayonara, baby." to indicate an alien phrase.

"On the fly" would be an example of an idiomatic phrase, actually. :) Which may have been deliberate!

Eowyn uses the informal form to Aragorn when she asks to come with him on the paths of the dead.

Plus of course Pippin new all these important people. He knew gandalf and Aragorn. He became friendly with Faramir, and denethor made him a guardsman in the tower. Plus he had a hobbitish informality with many of these people

One thing that just popped into my mind about pippin and how he is from the gentry class, regarding your videos about things in the movie that are nods to the books; Merry says to pippin after the destruction of isengard, "you've never done a hard days work"

As a Portuguese speaker, I was glad to hear your discussion about thou and you. I always thought that “thou” was the formal equivalent to usted (Spanish) and você (Portuguese), and that “you” was the informal equivalent of “tú” (Spanish) and tu (Portuguese), but it was other way around! Very interesting!

Now that was a true eye-opener, thank you for that! As a native German-speaker I'm of course familiar with the concept, we have the formal Sie and informal du. But it never occured to me that thou was used in such a manner, I always figured it was an old English way of speaking. I'll pay more attention now to the use of it. I'll come to the Mouth of Sauron in a few days (I'm currently reading it in real time). I also remember it used in the Silmarillion quite often, I'll pay closer attention in my next read who is speaking to whom 😊

Ya know I just figured it was the classic human nature that caused rumor to spread and I was really wondering where you were gonna go with this. Pleasant surprise I really enjoyed it!

I remember there was a remark that when he put on his uniform he felt kind of silly, but "looked indeed like a 'prince of halflings'. And when the ruffians saw him in it, they cerrainly were impressed!

Originally "thou/thee" were singular and "ye/you" were plural, but English eventually adopted the French custom of using the plural form in formal contexts.

My dear melon Geek, I am merely a lowly English teacher. So I have never heard of this distinction between formal "you" and informal "thou." I was always taught that "thou" was archaic and therefore now used only in more formal settings. "Thou" is singular and "you" (ye) is plural, according to the dictionaries Tolkien as a Catholic surely knew the basic prayer: "Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women..." This is certainly formal language, as nobody speaks informally to the Mother of God. I took the passage in RotK where Denethor was amused to mean that it was Pippin's wishing to pledge himself to service in recompense for Boromir's sacrifice that amused him. I also understand that Pippin was called a prince due to the rumor going around Minas Tirith that the Rohirrim would bring with them doughty halfling warriors, so that Pippin had come to announce that to the Steward. Sorry, Geek, but I cannot seem to find the word "thou" in either passage. Perhaps I'm missing the right textual reference? And also, perhaps Tolkien meant Westron to have a different distinction of formal and informal than English. Very intriguing. Keep up the good work. Namarie.

The title is not far off. He is the son of the Great Took.

Considering that Pippin is the heir to the Thainship of the Shire, he sort of IS a 'Prince of the Halflings'....

Return of the King, Appendix F, part II: Translation, paragraph 2.

This is quite deep. I enjoyed these musings. Well done.

Joshua, you said, "...every language has its idiomatic (you know) ways of talking that don't really make sense if you translate literally yo another language and I can't think of a good example OFF THE TOP OF MY HEAD...." 😂🤣😆

Great stuff, as usual.

It's in the book The Return of the King

If you’ve ever been around upper class Brits (I’ve had the misfortune) you’ll note they still use Thee and Thou as affectionate terms-eg, lovers call one another thee in love letters, a governess will call babies thee, etc. Another subtle thing Tolkien does (Americans fail to note this usually) is use social class coding language. Farmer Maggot first sees Pippin in the “Mushrooms” chapt and says, “If it isn’t Master Pippin-Mister Peregrin Took, I should say..” first addressing Pippin as if he’s a mere boy with the affectionate “master,” then correcting to more dignified adult address. Later, in Bree, Frodo introduces the group to Butterbur: “Mr Took and Mr Brandybuck. This is Sam Gamgee. My name is Underhill.” Observe that Sam, being lower class, does not get called “mister”-in fact his lowly station only merits a “Master Samwise-a servant’s title. Frodo calls himself “Underhill,” the way a gentleman or lord would speak. Tolkien does this brilliantly throughout, although that is how any educated Englishman of his day would write,

I have a that list all of the Hobbit meals as well

Pippin says to (I think) Bergerond or maybe Bergil that his father is a farmer

When you go to ren faire, the " citizens" of the fair may refer to you as a Lord or Lady.

As an aside; there is only one Michel place name in England, Michelcombe (big valley) on the edge of the Dartmoor National Park, Devon. Guess what its very close to ... Buckland in the Moor. The same word survives more often in Scotland as Meikle (also meaning big). Scots (language) is more closely related to Middle English than modern English is as it didn't go through the Great Vowel Shift that southern English (language) went through in the Early Modern period.

A related point: Frodo is not actually Frodo, but Froda! And Smeagol is actually Trahald, I think. This is also in Appendix F.

Now what's odd is that sometimes Tolkien seems to be thinking in English, though, like when Galadriel says that the box she gives Sam has a G on it which can stand for 'Galadriel or garden in your language.' But was the word for garden also beginning with G in hobbitish? Remember, they didn't call themselves hobbits, but kuduk or something like that.

I think the whole formal/informal thing for the words you/thou is similar to the same thing for the words ye/the. In written documents the character used for the "th" sound looked a lot like a "y"

Gemütlichkeit is a good example of a word which doesn't quite translate perfectly.

Because it’s the idiom you used at the moment ‘doing it on the fly’ makes zero sense if you said it ‘preforming it while floating’