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

[BlondieLoxie]

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.

But does it matter if it's contradictory? People are just saying what they say, not that it's 'right' or logical!

I have breakfast, lunch and dinner. And pudding.

I think tea is a drink with cake or snack mid afternoon (or possibly a children's early dinner), supper is a late snack or late small meal (I.e. later and smaller than dinner would be).

I can only dream of brunch. Leisurely brunch at a nice time like 11am/midday on a weekend, having had a lie in....

Growing up we had
Breakfast
Lunch
Tea, if adults eating then small sandwiches and cakes etc at 3.30 pm eaten in the sitting room
Tea if children eating then hot main meal eaten at 5.30 eaten at kitchen table
Dinner adults only at 8.pm eaten at the dining table
Supper for children a snack of toast, fruit or porridge about an hour before bed eaten in the nursery /bedroom
Supper for adult something foraged from the fridge eaten at the kitchen table.
We didn't have dessert or pudding, we had 'afters'.

Breakfast, lunch, tea, pudding. Dinner is evening meal out. Supper would be something small like cereal before bed but we never have that and wouldn't use that word either.

I have pudding too but always ask for a dessert menu when in a restaurant.

Breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert here

I use breakfast, lunch and dinner, and I'm southern. I think historically, tea as a meal came about when a hungry aristo came up with an idea for a meal between breakfast and evening dinner (they wouldn't usually eat between those times) so had tea, sandwiches and cakes, hence afternoon tea. Working people usually had their main meal at lunchtime (hence dinner at lunchtime) and then picked up on the idea of "tea" but it had to be later in the day as they were working when "tea" would normally be served.
I would now use "tea" to describe the meal my toddler has at 4-5 pm, which is far earlier than my husband and I eat. Supper would be a light meal later in the evening if we hadn't had dinner (or if we had and were hungry, I suppose!) Oh, and if we ever have a main meal at lunchtime we call it "dinner-at-lunchtime" :-)

Breakfast lunch and tea here.

Dinner if gong out or having a dinner party. Tea still if it is just a close friend round after work whereby the company is more important than the food.

Oh yes, supper would be a snack like item e.g. cheese and biscuits later in the evening if you're still hungry, or after the theatre or something.

Dessert is not posh though. Pudding is the posh thing to call it.

Dessert is "middle class" and would result in unkind snickering from actual posh people. Not that any terms should be called "wrong" but, for instance, the Queen would say pudding.

It could be working class too though.

Actual posh people. My life would be over if I heard an actual posh person sniggering at me!

There is absolutely nothing irritating about the word supper - it appears to be the only word that everyone agrees relates to eating late in the evening. Dinner and tea, on the other hand, have been ruined by people using them for entirely different types of food and drink breaks! At least breakfast and lunch are not confusing, which is why I always use those words... Anything you eat later than lunchtime becomes a battleground for those with nothing better to do than get irritated by irrelevancies and look for excuses to tell you off!

https://www.buzzfeed.com/jamiejones/where-in-the-uk-are-you-from-based-on-food?bffbuk&utm_term=.oa1x0qn3O#.fl9rXA4wy

I got West Country.... How!?

'Sweet' for pudding is even wankier than dessert.

Dessert seems to be like 'serviette' and 'lavatory' - some people think they're being refined by using them, whilst the aforementioned 'actual posh people' are busy saying pudding, napkin and loo...

My grandparents would have said:
Breakfast
Luncheon
Tea
Dinner
Supper
The last four all have social uses, even today. The first, breakfast is now used as a business meeting and of course can be social.

At the end of the day, scoff is scoff, however you choose to enjoy it!

roundabout You're not irritated by 'supper' but many are! Don't know what it is about the word, but many people have mentioned it here or elsewhere.

See, I have never said I'm going out for lunch or dinner (evening meal). I say I'm going for dinner or tea lol. Like, I'll say, let's have a subway for dinner (in the afternoon) or we will go to a resteraunt in the evening for our tea

And if we are going to be dicks about it (which I think, on balance, I probably am), isn't it the case that dinner was always the main meal (only real meal?) for a long time, and its timing shifted about? And lunch(eon) is a relatively modern invention?

For those of you with the school dinners argument - we called them school lunches

Chopstick I quite often refer to dinner as lunch time, more so since my daughter is at school. But I would never call the evening meal dinner as dinner most definitely means the meal in the middle of the day (to us). If you go out in the evening then you say you are having an evening meal, it still isn't dinner. I can't think of any of my friends or family who would call the afternoon/evening meal dinner. Isn't it funny how different people call it different things across the country.

I just grew up with it being called breakfast dinner tea. Breakfast was usually bacon and eggs, dinner was a roast dinner, and tea was sandwiches , cake, soup etc . That is in a farming family so a lot of cooked food is consumed.

Breakfast, lunch, dinner and dessert. From London. I think it's a generational thing also because my grandad says breakfast dinner and tea and he's from London too.

breakfast - lunch - tea (snack after school) - dinner

English people spend far too much time worrying about what class vibes they're giving off. You can mug up on all the vocab you like, say 'looking glass' and 'napkin', but they'll catch you out when you pronounce 'valet' as the French do or when you put fish knives on the table. Or when they find out your great granddad was a farm labourer. They'll shout 'ha we knew you were non-U!'

I just grew up with it being called breakfast dinner tea. Breakfast was usually bacon and eggs, dinner was a roast dinner, and tea was sandwiches , cake, soup etc . That is in a farming family so a lot of cooked food is consumed. Snap Three cooked meals a day. My poor mother.

Breakfast, lunch, tea.

Northern Mother.