thank you all for your answers. reading them has been very interesting for me.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Selmo
In his letters, Tolkien has written that some of his inspiration for the character of Sam came from the men under his command during the Great War. Even in the 21st Century, private soldiers do not address Officers by their first names. Likewise, it would be unthinkable for me to speak to the head of the organisation in which I work by her first name. I would address her as "Ma'am" or "Vice-chancellor", never "Janet".
Class structures exist in all human societies, whether you like it or not, and were even stronger in the society in which Tolkien was raised.
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of course you are right about most of societies having a sort of class structure... i would not agree on every society having class structures, because i think that there may be some hunter-gatherer societies, which do not.
i am not an expert of class structure... but i think that the society i live in, germany, has not a class structure as shown in lotr. actually i never saw the man, who owns the company i am working for... we only see the headman master, whom we adress by his firstname and sometimes call boss if we like too. i think most people in germany adress the guys they are working with every day by their firstnames.
i think germany is a little bit different then england or the usa... because we call each other by the firstnames most of the time. when i was a pupil, wev even called some teachers by their firstnames. american friends have told me, that something like that would be unthinkable for them.
so probably that is one reason why i am so unlucky with sam calling frodo "sir all the time".
if i would meet the man who owns the company i work for i would adress him by his lastname and call him "Sie" (a respectful form of "you", probably like calling one "Sir")... but if he would take me on a quest, to destroy the one ring and i would go trough thick and thin with him... i would probably stop calling him "sir" very soon... because i would consider him as equal to me than.