Dinner, lunch or tea?

[anti-pacer]

How do you refer to your meals? As a stereotype I think Northerners call their midday meal "dinner" and evening meal "tea". Southerners and Scots refer to their midday meal as "lunch" and evening meal as "dinner". Midlanders seem mixed.

Despite being a Northerner I called it lunch and dinner for my respective meals. What do you call them?

By the way I have no idea what the Welsh, Irish and Northern Irish refer to them as - generally.

 

[Howardh]

Dinner at 12 - 1pm, tea at 5 - 6pm, supper at bedtime.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Evening meal is tea. I'm getting rapidly corrupted to Southern on the midday meal though...

I believe the reason is that "dinner" is typically a sit-down hot meal, and in t'mills this would be served (as is still practice in many parts of Germany) at midday, and there'd just be jam, bread and butter in the evening (again as is often still practice in Germany where it is known as "Abendbrot" - evening bread).

 

[Domh245]

Generally, lunch at midday, dinner in the evening. For my Mancunian Grandparents it is Dinner and Tea respectively. I'll also occasionally call the evening meal supper but I am acutely aware that dinner should be a rather more formal meal than supper (or tea)

 

[EM2]

Lunch and tea

 

[Whistler40145]

Depends on what company I'm in.

At home it's Breakfast, Dinner and Tea

If on holiday it's Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner

 

[yorkie]

How do you refer to your meals? As a stereotype I think Northerners call their midday meal "dinner" and evening meal "tea". Southerners and Scots refer to their midday meal as "lunch" and evening meal as "dinner". Midlanders seem mixed.

Despite being a Northerner I called it lunch and dinner for my respective meals. What do you call them?

By the way I have no idea what the Welsh, Irish and Northern Irish refer to them as - generally.

A hot meal would be dinner, but could potentially occur at lunchtime (arguably, a hot meal consumed at lunchtime could either be called dinner or lunch).

A sandwich would never be dinner, regardless of when it was consumed.

I know several people here in York who have their lunch at just after 11am, and it would not be a cooked meal either, I don't think that could be called 'dinner' by any stretch.

 

[DaleCooper]

Dinner at dinnertime, tea at teatime, supper at suppertime. What's lunch?

No one has mentioned elevenses.

 

[yorkie]

Dinner at dinnertime, tea at teatime, supper at suppertime. What's lunch?

No one has mentioned elevenses.

I didn't know there was such a name for it, but I know a lot of people who eat at that time (not particularly by their choice, but to do with the way their day is structured).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elevenses

Elevenses is a short break taken at around 11 a.m. to consume a drink or snack of some sort. The name and details vary between countries.

Elevenses typically consists of tea or coffee, often with a biscuit....

Though the people I know would not be drinking tea or coffee and would presumably be eating their lunch rather than just a biscuit.

 

[Whistler40145]

Exactly, we never had Lunch Ladies at School, always Dinner Ladies.

 

[DaleCooper]

I didn't know there was such a name for it, but I know a lot of people who eat at that time (not particularly by their choice, but to do with the way their day is structured).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elevenses
Though the people I know would not be drinking tea or coffee and would presumably be eating their lunch rather than just a biscuit.

You've never heard of elevenses? It's a snack between breakfast and dinner, usually something like a cuppa and a cake.

 

[yorkie]

Exactly, we never had Lunch Ladies at School, always Dinner Ladies.

Hmm... this has cropped up a few times before:

If lunch is at midday, why do you have dinner ladies at school?

its a term made up by working class parents.
Officially, there is no such thing as a "dinner lady". They are "School Meal Supervisory Assistants". true.

Just to confuse you, at my school we can have packed lunches or school dinners!

And to cause more confusion, some people refer just to the staff who make and serve dinners "dinner ladies" while others may also refer to staff who supervise students at dinner/lunch time - and have nothing to do with the actual serving of meals - as "dinner ladies", though I believe the latter are being, or have been, phased out in favour of regular school staff doing duties.

 

[RichmondCommu]

Brought up in Derbyshire but living in London anything eaten between 12.00 and 14.00 is lunch and anything consumed between 17.00 and 19.30 is tea. My three youngest children who were born in London also refer to their evening meal as tea due to the influence of my wife and I (my wife having been brought up in Lancashire).

 

[PaxVobiscum]

Luncheon is at 1 pm and our butler (we had to let to footman go) announces "Dinner is served" when he rings the gong at 7 pm.
I'm sure it is much the same in Paul Sidorczuk's house.

 

[DaleCooper]

Luncheon is at 1 pm and our butler (we had to let to footman go) announces "Dinner is served" when he rings the gong at 7 pm.

Surely you don't allow the butler to speak directly to you.

 

[Phil.]

Nowadays
07.30 - Breakfast.
10.45 - Elevenses
13.00 - Lunch
15.30 - Afternoon tea (coffee in my case)
19.00 - Dinner
21.30 - Supper

When I was still at home in Worksop
07.30 - Breakfast
13.00 - Dinner
18.00 - Tea

When I was still working
Pick a time and eat.

 

[bb21]

Tea!? Tea has scones to go with it. Bloody northerners trying their best to be confusing as always (because they are themselves confused perhaps?).

 

[MidnightFlyer]

Breakfast, dinner and tea. Anything else is bloody southerners trying their best to be confusing

 

[fowler9]

Breakfast, lunch and tea for this Scouser. What the hell is supper? Some kind of borgeois creation no doubt. Three meals a day not good enough? Ha ha. Seriously though, if I ever called a mate to ask what they were up to and they said they were having supper I would p*ss myself laughing. Just not a word that is used around these parts.... well at least not in my circle. Ha ha.

 

[GusB]

I'm Scottish and was brought up with breakfast, lunch and dinner. Supper was something that was occasional and usually just before bedtime. However, we moved to a small village on the Moray coast and here it's breakfast, dinner (denner) and supper. Tea is often used for the evening meal.

 

[tsr]

This is a railway forum, isn't it?

Earlies:
Breakfast - 3am
Second breakfast - 9am
Lunch - 1pm
Tea - 6pm

Lates:
Breakfast - 10am
Dinner - 2pm
Tea - 8pm ish
Supper - 1am

Middles:
Breakfast - 8am
More food - whenever
More food - mid-afternoon
Supper - 8pm

Day off:
Whatever t'family say, it's not normal though, I'll tell y'that for nowt!

 

[GatwickDepress]

Breakfast, lunch, and tea. It's dinner only if it's hot food in a canteen at work or school for me.

 

[Seacook]

I use:
Breakfast
Lunch or dinner interchangeably
Tea

 

[EM2]

Breakfast, lunch and tea for this Scouser. What the hell is supper? Some kind of borgeois creation no doubt. Three meals a day not good enough? Ha ha.

Of course not!

Breakfast
Elevenses
Brunch
Lunch
Afternoon tea
Dinner
Supper
Midnight snack



From Stuart Maconie, who hails from that well-known hotbed of the bourgeoisie, Wigan...
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/stuart-maconie-revealswhy-its-great-292657

In the North, we still have our dinner at midday. And supper is not an evening meal. It's something entirely different.

A tv producer once asked me to her house for "a spot of supper" and I thought it might feel a bit odd, both of us in our dressing gowns eating digestive biscuits and cheese on the settee.

 

[Lrd]

Tea!? Tea has scones to go with it. Bloody northerners trying their best to be confusing as always (because they are themselves confused perhaps?).

I agree, tea is a hot drink not a meal.

The correct way is: breakfast, lunch and dinner.

None of this supper nonsense either, that's a late night snack.

 

[EM2]

Exactly, we never had Lunch Ladies at School, always Dinner Ladies.

But if you go out for a meal in a restaurant in the evening, don't you go out to dinner? Or if you host friends for an evening, don't you have a dinner party?

And now I've read the word 'dinner' so often that it just looks weird :?

 

[D365]

Nowadays
07.30 - Breakfast.
10.45 - Elevenses
13.00 - Lunch
15.30 - Afternoon tea (coffee in my case)
19.00 - Dinner
21.30 - Supper

When I was still at home in Worksop
07.30 - Breakfast
13.00 - Dinner
18.00 - Tea

When I was still working
Pick a time and eat.

This is the most accurate I've found with regards to living in different areas of the country.

For us, lunch ladies and dinner ladies were interchangeable.

 

[ainsworth74]

Tea!? Tea has scones to go with it. Bloody northerners trying their best to be confusing as always (because they are themselves confused perhaps?).

I think you'll find it's the Southerners who are confused. It's all perfectly logical to Northerners!

 

[Whistler40145]

I agree, tea is a hot drink not a meal.

The correct way is: breakfast, lunch and dinner.

None of this supper nonsense either, that's a late night snack. [emoji38]

It is unless you live up North.

 

[AlterEgo]

Breakfast, lunch and dinner for this southerner.