: I don't follow you. The name doesn't imply any legal designation.

I don't understand the point. "Heir" is a legal term. Under the English common law, an heir is a person who inherits a decedent's estate by operation of law (i.e. either by a mandatory statute [primogeniture] or because the decedent didn't have a will). One who takes due to a designation by the decedent (i.e. named in the will) are called a legatee (receives a "legacy" of personal property) or a distributee (receives a distribution of real property). Anyway, the point is that the designation as "heir" is very much a legal designation. Dior was Thingol's legal heir as one of his issue, indeed the only surviving one.

: : There is nothing stated that says Thingol did not designate him as heir.
: : But as was addressed previously there is no need to name a formal heir if
: : you are not going to die (and he did not know he was going to). The very
: : essence of his name, Eluchil, gives evidence enough that he was in fact
: : Thingols legitimate heir. Further evidence is that no other of Thingols
: : close male descent kindred took up the throne. Also Dior Eluchil may well
: : have been summoned; Melian did send messages to Ossiriand after Thingols
: : death.

: There is no evidence to support the contention that Dior INHERITED anything from Thingol. He was not summoned to Doriath, he went to reestablish the kingdom of Thingol. And we don't know if Melian sent messages. The story in THE SILMARILLION is completely bogus.

You don't have to inherit anything to be an heir. Heirship is a legal status. For example, one could be an "heir" of a penniless man. To the extent that the right to rule Doriath belonged to Thingol and could legally be passed on, it most definitely passed to his heir and belonged to Dior.

: Absence of denial proves nothing about an assertion, so Tolkien's lack of denial about Dior being a legally designated heir does not in any prove that Dior was such an heir. Tolkien doesn't deny that Dior was an axe-murderer, but there is no more reason to assume he was one than to assume that he was INHERITING the kingdom.

Again, the word "heir" *is* a legal term. Its more general and generic usage in modern American English is a bastardization of its precise meaning. I tend to think Tolkien used the word correctly (i.e. in its legal sense).

Russ