The only reason I use different names is that I eat in a different pattern -- when I was young I ate tea when I came home from school, now I eat dinner later in the evening.
This - and as my parents were teachers and ate school meals too, we didn't have dinner at all. They sometimes had supper - a snack late in the evening, cheese and biscuits maybe.
When I was little I thought the evening meal was called supper (though the dogs always had dinner, probably because of the alliteration) but when I came to the UK, I thought supper was more American and switched to dinner. I still have supper moments occasionally.
That's funny. I always associated the word supper to British English rather than American English. All my American friends have "dinner" and not supper.
Well, when I was young I didn't speak English. When I started speaking English I called the evening meal dinner, but since getting married foradan got me used to call it supper. Dinner, by his definition - or what I have observed as being his definition - is the big meal of the day, whether at lunch time or at supper time.
Actually, that's not quite right. I eat my main meal in the evening on weekdays, but on Saturday and Sunday when I'm home, we eat in the middle of the day.
Sunday lunch is still called that even though it's the main meal. The meal we have in the evening on those days is called "tea", though.
Supper is a snack you have later in the evening - I don't usually but Dad always has something around 9.30-10pm.
So lunch is lunch, but tea or dinner depends on what we are eating.
When I was at school, the midday meal was 'dinner' rather than lunch on schooldays. 'School dinners' is a common phrase, but I've never heard 'school lunches'. At home though, especially on Sundays, the midday meal would be lunch (as in 'Sunday lunch' or 'BBC Lunchtime News').
Tea is a mid to late afternoon light meal. Supper is a late night light meal or snack.
I don't always have a 'main' meal, but if I do it's more likely to be in the evening.
I make the distinction between tea, high tea, dinner and supper by degrees of formality and hour. Tea is a more casual meal. high tea would be when the whoe family sat down together, in the evening, around the dining table and dinner was when friends were around.
Supper is the late evening "top-up" just before bed. Note - hitting a kebab van after a skinfull and after 11pm is pure greed and not supper. Stopping for a fish supper on the way home from the pub is, again, pure greed as there is too much volume to be classed as supper.
American here, age 50. From Monday to Saturday, my family (the one I grew up in) ate breakfast-lunch-supper, in that order, and supper was the main/big meal. On Sundays, however, it was breakfast-dinner-supper, in that order, and dinner was the main/big meal.
I had friends who called their weekday evening meal dinner, but that always suggested something fancier than ordinary eats, to me (maybe because midday Sunday dinner was a real production, in my family).
But, hey, this is interesting (depending on your standard for interesting): I'd've said that in bringing up my own sons, I didn't change the terminology I was raised with. Yet I just asked my 17- and 9-year-olds what *they* call the evening meal, and both replied, "Dinner."
When I was a kid, I used to eat 'tea' as soon as I came in from school and at about the traditional 'tea time'. These days I can eat the same meal any time up to midnight but I still call it 'tea'!
I'm pretty much a grazer in that I don't really eat set meals. I kind of snack the whole day or just eat whenever I'm hungry. As a result, sometimes my big meal is at lunch, and sometimes it's at dinner. When I'm visiting my family though my big meal is always dinner though.
Even though the evening meal is "tea" (of course) this confuses people, especially any South African ones passing through, so I have given in and now say "supper". Or "dinner" if entertaining.
But you have missed out so many meals! Admittedly, breakfast for me is now almost always just a mug of coffee and two cigarettes (except when I'm away on holiday) and work is not conducive to having Elevenses, but I still (sort of) have tea, supper and late-supper... Dinner only happens when I'm in a restaurant.
Incidentally, I prefer Bleu d'Auvergne: have you compared that with Stilton? (Oh, how lovely: the spell-checker thinks my cheese is called Blue Daphne!)
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wellinghall) wrote2011-06-29 06:28 am
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When I went to secondary school, I started having school dinners (compulsory).
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Also: 'other comment' on Stilton. Is it stilton? I used to Really Not Like stilton, but am aquiring the taste, particularly in sauces.
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Sunday lunch is still called that even though it's the main meal. The meal we have in the evening on those days is called "tea", though.
Supper is a snack you have later in the evening - I don't usually but Dad always has something around 9.30-10pm.
So lunch is lunch, but tea or dinner depends on what we are eating.
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Bah poll that makes answers mutually exclusive.
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Tea is a mid to late afternoon light meal. Supper is a late night light meal or snack.
I don't always have a 'main' meal, but if I do it's more likely to be in the evening.
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Supper is the late evening "top-up" just before bed. Note - hitting a kebab van after a skinfull and after 11pm is pure greed and not supper. Stopping for a fish supper on the way home from the pub is, again, pure greed as there is too much volume to be classed as supper.
Afternoon tea is a whole new ball game.
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I had friends who called their weekday evening meal dinner, but that always suggested something fancier than ordinary eats, to me (maybe because midday Sunday dinner was a real production, in my family).
But, hey, this is interesting (depending on your standard for interesting): I'd've said that in bringing up my own sons, I didn't change the terminology I was raised with. Yet I just asked my 17- and 9-year-olds what *they* call the evening meal, and both replied, "Dinner."
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But I think of it as getting the tea...
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Incidentally, I prefer Bleu d'Auvergne: have you compared that with Stilton? (Oh, how lovely: the spell-checker thinks my cheese is called Blue Daphne!)