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Lunch/Dinner/Supper/Tea?!


Jav_NE

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Currently working down south and people here have baffled me regarding what they call their meals. They call their lunch their dinner and their dinner their tea, i mean WTF?! Do you all do this down this end of the country?! Is it a London thing? I just don't get it. I even lived in Bournemouth for 3 years and never heard this. I don't even know what supper/tea is supposed to be, i thought they were just terms 'posh' people used. As far as i have ever known, and everyone i know back home in the midlands refers to them the same, the day's meals are named as follows...

 

Morning - 6am-10am ish = Breakfast

 

Afternoon - Between 12pm-3pm = Lunch

 

Evening - Anytime after 5pm ish = Dinner

 

That's just the way it is!!! Right?!

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To be honest, I always thought it was the other way round - that the Breakfast/Lunch/Dinner was a southern trait and that Breakfast/Dinner/Tea was a more northern way of looking at it. Shows what I know.

 

When addressing my family, I always use Dinner/Tea but with others I use Lunch/Dinner since I think it sounds more eloquent personally. Maybe it's a grass-is-always-greener thing.

 

I think technically speaking, Dinner is just the largest meal you eat during the day and so could qualify for either time slot depending on what you consume.

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So you never had a roast "Sunday Dinner" at midday, @Jav_NE?

 

I use lunch and dinner interchangeably sometimes. From Sunday dinners growing up, I probably associated lunch with a cold midday meal and dinner with a hot midday meal and then merged them later.

 

Tea is your evening meal.... obvs.....

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Breakfast - morning.

Lunch - middle of day.

Dinner/tea - evening. Use either interchangeably, no difference between them.

 

I'm a southerner. I would perhaps change it around and call it dinner if I was having the largest meal in the middle of the day, but never would I call a meal in the middle of the day tea. I guess if I had dinner at lunchtime, I'd call the evening meal tea. I never ever use the word supper.

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So you never had a roast "Sunday Dinner" at midday, @Jav_NE?

 

I use lunch and dinner interchangeably sometimes. From Sunday dinners growing up, I probably associated lunch with a cold midday meal and dinner with a hot midday meal and then merged them later.

 

Tea is your evening meal.... obvs.....

 

Actually in my family we call it Sunday Lunch....so i suppose it still holds there.

 

In my actual life, i only eat one meal - in the evening, so i suppose that since i have no need to distinguish between them, i could just call my evening meal 'meal' or 'foodtime' and be done with it.

 

I presume everyone calls it whatever their parents/carers call it. I doubt anyone wakes up one morning and says 'Hmm, I know what i'll call dinner, just to fuck with everyone else - i'll call it tea. That'll piss everyone off!'

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I'm a landan lad and I've always called it breakfast lunch and dinner. Admittedly the sunday roast is an exception, though we normally ate it closer to dinner time anyway. Actually we ususally just called it roast, or sunday roast.

 

I think I have never heard someone called their lunch their dinner, and I find it highly proposterous that you might!

 

This is another thing that people get far too angry about for no reason. I call them the same as Jav, but have no qualms if someone wants to switch them around because that's what they're used to.

 

SHUTUP BOB THIS IS SERIOUS SHIT

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To be honest, I always thought it was the other way round - that the Breakfast/Lunch/Dinner was a southern trait and that Breakfast/Dinner/Tea was a more northern way of looking at it. Shows what I know.

 

 

THIS.

 

I know it to be a more of a Northern thing, so what's wrong with you up there! :p

 

I call mine Orange Time, Pitta Bread Interlude and It's lucky if I remember. :)

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I don't think it's a north-south thing, just some people (breakfast-dinner-tea-people) are stupid.

 

 

I once got told off by a teacher for doing this. Back in primary school we were doing stuff on health/diet, so had to list what we'd eaten in the week. He looked at mine confused, "Why have you put that as your dinner? That was your tea. And that's not lunch, it's dinner."

"That's what I call them."

"No that's wrong, go change them."

 

I refused.

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So I've lived in London most of my life and it's always been:

 

Breakfast

Lunch

Dinner

 

However, the last 3 years I've lived for bit in Belfast and work with some northerners who all say it as:

 

Breakfast

Dinner

Tea

 

So basically the opposite to what you are saying.... So I'm not sure it is a north south divide. Perhaps just whatever you grew up with your parents calling meal times.

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It's breakfast, dinner and tea.

Tea time is 5pm. Always has been. Always will be.

People who think dinner is in the evening are morons. :P

 

I have never heard anyone call lunch dinner before seeing this topic. Dinner has always just been a fancy way of saying tea for me.

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