Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Am I the only one that doesn't use the word 'tea'?!

369 replies

BlondieLoxie · 28/07/2016 09:19

Yesterday I was corrected for using the word dinner instead of tea!

Tea to me is the hot stuff in a cup which I love 😁 Dinner is dinner. Supper..what is that? Am I in the minority here that I simply say breakfast, lunch, dinner and possibly dessert.

OP posts:
MadisonMontgomery · 28/07/2016 10:10

Breakfast, lunch, then tea if it's early or supper if it's late.

MilicentKing · 28/07/2016 10:11

Breakfast, lunch and dinner here (East Anglia).

However, playdates get asked whether they'd "like to stay for tea" and I have no idea why! I guess because at those times I tend to feed the children separately from the adults, it's earlier and is often a kid-style meal (fish fingers or something quick).

It's school dinners though.

60sname · 28/07/2016 10:12

Breakfast, lunch, dinner/supper

Tea is: little sandwiches, cake, biscuits (if speaking to my parents), hot drink (if speaking to anyone else)

MermaidTears · 28/07/2016 10:12

I honestly do not know why but I cringe when people say tea... instead of dinner. And supper makes me feel cringe too

neolara · 28/07/2016 10:12

Tea is tea and cake. We eat a lot of cake..

WaitrosePigeon · 28/07/2016 10:13

Breakfast
Lunch
Dinner

Tea is the stuff you drink.

WaitrosePigeon · 28/07/2016 10:13

And pudding

WaitrosePigeon · 28/07/2016 10:14

tea makes me cringe too

Theoretician · 28/07/2016 10:14

Tea is a hot drink with milk and sugar.

Breakfast, lunch and supper are meals.

Dinner is the main meal of the day. (That's not just my opinion, it's in the dictionary.) At home supper was dinner, except on Sunday when lunch was dinner. At boarding school lunch was always dinner.

At both home and boarding school dessert was a daily occurrence, so the meal that was followed by dessert was dinner. (The boarding school lunches and suppers would otherwise have been fairly similar, so dessert managed to distinguish which was dinner.)

BarbaraofSeville · 28/07/2016 10:15

Those of you who say that 'dinner is the main meal' and the cold lighter meal is lunch or tea, where are you from?

I've never heard that, people either say breakfast dinner tea or breakfast lunch dinner and what is eaten when is irrelevant.

I use breakfast dinner tea even if tea is a meal out. DP or I will say 'do you fancy going out for tea tonight' to mean go out to a restaurant for a meal.

There would be no confusion with afternoon tea, because then we would say 'lets go for afternoon tea' and there is also the clue in 'tea tonight' not in the afternoon. I wouldn't eat before afternoon tea anyway - you usually loads, it's massively filling and I normally end up taking half of it away for later anyway.

acasualobserver · 28/07/2016 10:15

Breakfast, lunch, supper here. Dinner is more formal, friends would come for dinner or we would go out for dinner.

Tea is a drink. Afternoon tea is yummy with little sandwiches, cake and scones.

I agree with this but interestingly (for me at least) I had to get to page 3 before someone said it. Really amused by all the very specific permutations and how strongly people feel about them.

ScrambledSmegs · 28/07/2016 10:16

All of you cringing when you hear the word supper or tea or dinner or whatever - is it a class thing or another reason?

wanderings · 28/07/2016 10:17

Nobody has mentioned "luncheon" yet; as said by Bernard Cribbins in Fawlty Towers, along with other things witticisms as "televisual feast".

The evening meal was always "tea" when I was growing up, but I later called it dinner. I like hearing the word "supper" but I wouldn't use it myself.

I didn't come across "high tea" until I was at university, which wasn't Oxford or Cambridge.

I believe that in prison, the evening meal is usually called "tea", but I haven't been there myself!

CremeEggThief · 28/07/2016 10:17

I use both, but tend to use tea if we're eating earlier than normal (5-6) and dinner if it's our normal time (6-8).

On Sundays, we sometimes have supper, as we tend to eat our proper meal about 3-5 pm. Supper can be anytime between 7 and 10 here.

ChocChocPorridge · 28/07/2016 10:19

I've been thinking about how I define them...

Breakfast, lunch, then....

Tea == cold meal about 4
Dinner == hot, cooked meal around 6-7
Supper == hot or cold snack (eg soup or leftovers) 8-9

It seems in my head what a meal gets called depends both on whether it's a hot meal, and the time it is eaten!

noramum · 28/07/2016 10:20

I am German and we learned breakfast, lunch, dinner.

Tea is the liquid I drink from a cup. Supper - sounds like a word from a Regency novel about food served at a ball.

My MIL spent a year in London end of the Fifties. She learned tea as the meal for the children she nannied and dinner the meal for adults when said children were in bed.

I never use tea for DD's meal as we all eat together anyway, I only do extra meals if she has a playdate.

Ellybellyboo · 28/07/2016 10:24

Breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Tea is more snacky to me - if we have Sunday roast at lunchtime we have tea (sandwiches and cake) in the evening, or if the kids have an activity in the evening I'll give them a hot school dinner and we'll have beans on toast for 'tea' as quickness in the evening

To me, supper is something to eat before bed - glass of milk and a couple of biscuits/slice of toast

Theoretician · 28/07/2016 10:25

My mil says "dinner" for lunch. Makes me want to scream

Do "school dinner" and "dinner ladies" have a similar affect? Or are their school lunches and lunch ladies in your world?

CauliflowerBalti · 28/07/2016 10:26

Breakfast, dinner, tea. Northern.

My other half says breakfast, lunch, dinner, if the main meal is in the evening, and breakfast, dinner, tea if the main meal is at noon. He's from the Midlands.

Balletgirlmum · 28/07/2016 10:29

Dinner is what you have at 12 noon. Tea is what you have after 5pm.

Except my kids went to a posh junior school where they had lunch!

teacherwith2kids · 28/07/2016 10:31

Class thing is interesting.

I appear solidly MC. My father was born into a family that was by that point MC, my mother into a family that was at that point upper working / lower middle class.

All but 1 of my grandparents were born into families that were either working class or in at least 1 case absolutely on their uppers, living in absolutely Dickensian poverty (my grandfather learned to read when he was 14, at night school). The only one who was slightly more gentrified (great grandfather was a printer) was almost disowned for marrying so far beneath her.

So how I have come to have the 'upper middle class' of breakfast, lunch, supper is beyond me!

derxa · 28/07/2016 10:32

Breakfast * dinner Can't bear to type lunch
Growing up it was Breakfast Dinner Tea Supper
Scottish farmer.

AngelsWithFilthySouls · 28/07/2016 10:34

Breakfast, lunch, dinner usually but my gran said breakfast, dinner, tea so I do occasionally alternate between tea and dinner. Drives DH mad. He thinks it's down to my Teuchter roots and love of The Broons/Oor Wullie annuals!

gingerboy1912 · 28/07/2016 10:35

Breakfast. Dinner. Tea. In this house

A cup of tea is a drink.

Teatime is our evening meal.

But I know that a lot of people say breakfast. Lunch. Dinner.

VforVienetta · 28/07/2016 10:37

Breakfast, lunch, dinner and pudding here, tho I do call it supper if it's late.
Tea for evening meal really grates for some reason, I can't say it.
I think I just find it really confusing, so don't say it on principle so as not to add to the confusion!
DH says dessert and the DC have picked it up which really irritates me, but it seems very petty to 'correct' them so I have given up.

If I invite someone for tea, it means 11am or 4pm, for hot drinks and cake/biscuits.

Swipe left for the next trending thread