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Original poster

People saying pack lunch instead of packed lunch

192 replies

tiredtiredd · Yesterday 10:26

This makes me irrationally angry

OP posts:
rainbowstardrops · Yesterday 18:05

Fuck me.
I can understand that things irritate you, I get that and a lot of things irritate me but to start a thread about someone saying pack lunch instead of packed lunch? Bloody hell, are you having a slow day or something?

Inextremis · Yesterday 18:05

PinkyFlamingo · Yesterday 12:43

How can anyone be annoyed by someone saying pack not packed? Seriously? 😂

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It infuriates me. I don't know why, but it does. Makes me think of Bolton, which is never a good thing.

EverMerge · Yesterday 18:00

MotherofPufflings · Yesterday 17:57

Better tell this lot they're wrong then: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/packed-lunch

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Sounds like a letter writing English lesson to me! The LO is Persuasive letter.

BriarTime · Yesterday 18:00

EverMerge · Yesterday 17:50

You’re incorrect. It’s a pack lunch. Every child I know calls it this. So it’s you who is wrong. Next time you start a thread, check in with the majority who use the term.

I don’t think every child you know using that phrase (was it a Google Form you used to run that survey, or?) is robust evidence that OP is wrong, to be honest.

EverMerge · Yesterday 17:59

JudyTeeny · Yesterday 17:57

Then the children have been taught the wrong term. It's packed lunch, not pack lunch.
https://www.oed.com/search/dictionary/?scope=Entries&q=packed%20lunch

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I’m joking. I don’t care. But I have a couple of generations left to ruin and correct by telling them it’s pack lunch. (I’m a TA)

BriarTime · Yesterday 17:57

Needmorelego · Yesterday 11:25

At my primary school it was called "being on sandwiches".
Regardless of whether your lunch actually contained a sandwich or not.
Although it 99.9% would have contained a sandwich.
No one sent a thermos of pasta in them days.

Yes! When we were in school (Wales) we had to say whether we were on dinners (‘cínio’) or sandwiches (‘brechdanau’) when the teacher took the register in the morning!

MotherofPufflings · Yesterday 17:57

EverMerge · Yesterday 17:50

You’re incorrect. It’s a pack lunch. Every child I know calls it this. So it’s you who is wrong. Next time you start a thread, check in with the majority who use the term.

Better tell this lot they're wrong then: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/packed-lunch

packed lunch

1. a light meal put in a bag or container, that you take with you to be eaten…

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/packed-lunch

JudyTeeny · Yesterday 17:57

EverMerge · Yesterday 17:50

You’re incorrect. It’s a pack lunch. Every child I know calls it this. So it’s you who is wrong. Next time you start a thread, check in with the majority who use the term.

Then the children have been taught the wrong term. It's packed lunch, not pack lunch.
https://www.oed.com/search/dictionary/?scope=Entries&q=packed%20lunch

Oxford English Dictionary

The OED is the definitive record of the English language, featuring 600,000 words, 3 million quotations, and over 1,000 years of English.

https://www.oed.com/?tl=true

JudyTeeny · Yesterday 17:54

It's not regional, the correct term is packed lunch, not pack lunch. Pack up is regional, as is jackbit or snap.

BriarTime · Yesterday 17:54

LlynTegid · Yesterday 11:31

I understand not liking silly abbreviations. It's well down any list of misuse of the English language.

Such as overuse of literally, big, or referring to things by the word used in the United States. We are in the season of autumn, for example- the Fall is the name of a tv show or a former band from Manchester, not a season.

It really irritates me that Merriam Webster now glosses the use of ‘literally’ meaning ‘practically’. Their defence is that they are descriptive rather than prescriptive, but I always find that a bit thin when clearly dictionaries influence usage as well as just recording it.

It’s ’incredibly’ for me. ‘We take your privacy incredibly seriously’. Why would I find how seriously you take my privacy so hard to believe?! Just how seriously do you take my privacy that I would find the extent of your commitment to it so hard to credit?

EverMerge · Yesterday 17:50

You’re incorrect. It’s a pack lunch. Every child I know calls it this. So it’s you who is wrong. Next time you start a thread, check in with the majority who use the term.

Netcurtainnelly · Yesterday 17:48

Sarnies for my pack lunch 😊

Butchyrestingface · Yesterday 17:47

tiredtiredd · Yesterday 10:26

This makes me irrationally angry

It's good that you admit you are irrational about this issue.

Recognition is the first step to cure and this puts you ahead of at least 70% of thread starters on AIBU.

Realworld10 · Yesterday 17:44

Not actually heard that bit I do hate consistently seeing 'would of'!

Buynow · Yesterday 17:42

My theory is that those who say "pack lunch" have at some time in the past misheard someone calling it packed lunch.
I say packed lunch or pack up. My dad used to say snap , which I quite like but it's not a local description.

My current petrol hate is my dance teacher who announces that she's going to "learn" us a new dance every week.

HelenaWaiting · Yesterday 17:40

yellowbaby · Yesterday 14:46

I have always used ‘afraid to say’ so not a new thing and my understanding of it was not as fearful but to denote that the person found it unfortunate. So ending a sentence with ‘l’m afraid’ does not in this context mean you are scared.

i agree with your other examples though.

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Yes, it's "I'm afraid" or "I'm sorry to say". Conflating the two makes no sense.

MatronPomfrey · Yesterday 17:35

I grew up with it being called pack lunch and you carried it in your pack lunch box. Usually with a matching flask and a cartoon character on the front. Now where I live, people call it “bait”.

TheThirteenthFairy · Yesterday 17:32

tiredtiredd · Yesterday 11:08

Pack up doesn’t bother me as much as it’s another term for it. Pack lunch just sounds like it’s being said wrong.

I think you'll find that's 'wrongly'.

MotherofPufflings · Yesterday 17:22

This whole phenomenon has arisen because people don't ENUNCIATE properly anymore.

keeping up appearances 90s GIF
Flomasterina · Yesterday 17:02

Trouser

ThankYouNigel · Yesterday 17:02

YANBU. It’s really irritating. It’s ‘packed’.

trekkiemonster · Yesterday 17:01

WouldYouLikeAnyToast · Yesterday 16:36

You do realise that regional varieties exist?
Pack up is perfectly normal, it's not a pronunciation error.

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Not on mumsnet. Everyone has to be southern. And posh.

JustAnotherWhinger · Yesterday 17:00

Armorlux · Yesterday 14:49

Your school should have included tenses in the curriculum

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Highly amusing on here how many times my Scottish island variations are branded as “wrong” by folks whose schools clearly should have included manners in their curriculums.

mindutopia · Yesterday 16:38

Not as much as when people say ‘pot plant’ instead of ‘potted plant’ because regionally for me, a pot plant is something totally different. 😂

WouldYouLikeAnyToast · Yesterday 16:36

StarDolphins · Yesterday 13:55

I give my DD a pack up. I put it on the Chester draws in the hall so she doesn’t forget it. I’m having rest bite currently so have time.

You do realise that regional varieties exist?
Pack up is perfectly normal, it's not a pronunciation error.