Most people remember the first chapter of The Fellowship of the Ring for the main event, Bilbo’s party and all that entails. However, much like all of Tolkien’s works, there is an extra layer. In the first few pages of the chapter Tolkien puts on a masterclass of showing, not telling, the class divisions in hobbit life.
Before the party that delivers the Ring of Power to Frodo and kicks off the entire Lord of the Rings saga, Tolkien treats us to a conversation between the Gaffer, Old Noakes, Daddy Twofoot, Sandyman, and a few more. It is a rambling conversation revolving around Bilbo’s upcoming birthday party that tells us that these are all working-class stiffs without a single mention of money. The casual register, circular story, constant digressions, and constant interruptions (it’s nearly a call-and-response conversation) pinpoint exactly where this group stands in hobbit society.
Casual register is the language of everyday life. It is fun, exciting, and meandering. Casual register is sociable, it often expects others to interject in the middle of the conversation. Here is a demonstration of casual register being used by the great educator Rita Pierson.
Casual register matters to educators. Dr. Ruby Payne presented in A Framework for Understanding Poverty that people in poverty are less exposed to formal register than those from middle and upper class households. Unfortunately, school and government and business operate in formal register. If students are not explicitly taught formal register, they will always be at a disadvantage while dealing with authority figures or reading legal documents.
This leads back to the Gaffer and his buddies. In the video, Rita Pierson directly calls out casual register as being akin to gossip. The Gaffer loves gossip. In the conversation he brings up Frodo’s parents drowning in a boating accident while talking about completely unrelated people living on the other side of a river. Nobody does that unless they want to be pumped for more information. It is just gossip.
One could make the argument that the Gaffer is just gregarious and loquacious. However, Tolkien forces the reader to understand that the Gaffer is not wealthy by making the Gaffer question the value of literacy. More specifically, the Gaffer thinks that Bilbo meant no harm in teaching Sam (the Gaffer’s son) to read. This sort of lack of interest in education is another aspect of poverty identified by Ruby Payne in her book. For teachers, it may mean that students are not receiving the parental support at home we may hope. For readers, it is an easy way to code someone as being in poverty.
I imagine that Tolkien was aware about how register reflects on characters. He was a linguist and must have studied the way different groups use language. I think he knew exactly what he was doing by using two pages of dialog to define a character and culture without using a single descriptive sentence.
The Keasy Depot 