To hate hearing the word SUPPER

[newnameoldme]

Even at my ripe old age I don't know exactly when or what it refers to.

It makes me cringe at the pretentiousness whenever I hear it used. Only slightly less if elderly posh person!

Oh and still say afters 90% of the time.

fuckwitery Wed 10-May-17 13:39:23
YABU. It's a late evening meal.

People do not use it that way though - to mean a late evening meal, say after going out, which is what it once was when a main meal had been earlier in the day.

People now use it to mean the main meal. As if to say, "Of course it is not dinner, as even if I have spent hours cooking and it is the main meal, I know what a real dinner is with and this isn't one". That's the way in which I find it pretentious.

Dinner used to just mean the main meal of the day, whenever that was.
Now it seems always to be called "supper".

I'm from the most working class family in the world, ever, and we've always called the last meal of the day 'supper'.

That used to be upper class too. But dinner, the main meal was usually not at lunchtime. Supper might be a late very small meal or snack when 'dinner' had been had earlier, even when that was in the evening.

newnameoldme Wed 10-May-17 13:45:41
I just heard an advert on the radio and some woman rattling on about supper and wondered if it's only me that grimaces

Just remember David Cameron;s "kitchen suppers" newnameoldme

I'm northern so we eat:

Breakfast

Dinner

Tea

Supper

I grew up saying breakfast / lunch / usually supper (tea if it was snacky early evening fayre; supper if later on such as lasagne etc; dinner if eating out or friends over).

Since moving to a poncey area I've noticed that everyone says supper even when it's what I would have always called dinner (i.e. Linen napkins, foie gras etc)... it's almost like people are being 'aggressively, self-certifyingly posh' by using it and I just want to tell them all that they're all getting it wrong and showing themselves up

We might have supper if we had dinner early. I agree, though, it can sound pretentious. We have friends that invite us to 'kitchen suppers', makes us eye roll, inwardly.

What I really hate though is 'tea' for an evening meal, and 'dessert' - that makes me cringe - I will admit to being an inveterate snob.

Ugh supper is a slurpy word. Shudder.

Totally with you OP! The word makes me gag. It's the reason I can't watch Nigella- she uses it A LOT.

Buzz....sorry, you need to ditch those friends.

Tea and afters here!

I said makes my teeth itch to give a visual impression of what face I pull when I hear awesome and guys.

I don't feel strongly about supper but OP YANU for starting a thread where it was only a matter of time before anyone said 'picky bits' or 'picky tea' aarrghhhh!

I once asked someone who says supper what she thought dinner was. She answered that that's when you have elaborate food, silver, tablecloths, candles etc.

I disagree with her view: when dinner was called 'dinner' meaning the main meal of the day, many people having dinner had those things as a matter of course at the time. They did not call it dinner because of those things.

I think 'supper' is annoying. I think some people are almost scared of the word in case someone thinks they are like those who have 'dinner' at lunch time (which they might if it were their main meal).

flying

what's so awful about picky bits/picky tea? I don't think I've ever used those words, but there's nothing wrong with them, is there?

I grew up with supper being the main evening meal at about 6pm, we didn't eat anything at all after that.
DH grew up with supper being a bit of bread/biscuit etc before bed.

I am southern and middle class I guess, DH is northern and working class.

Now I refer to our evening meal as dinner, tea or supper depending on how the mood takes me.

I fail to see how it is 'pretentious'.

When I was growing up (deep south US) we ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner/supper. Depending on who was speaking, the evening meal terms were used interchangeably. Now, my family have breakfast, lunch, and dinner. tea is a beverage

Atlanta

And you do tend to have lovely (although veeery sweet!) tea :)!

The word supper just sounds so...childish to my ears, almost on a par with cuppa. What boils my linguistic piss, however, is using 'tea' to connote a meal!

Dinner is the posh/ "correct" thing to call an evening meal, isn't it?

No. That would be supper. Dinner indicates a smart, formal supper. And never lunch.

YY Cricket! Diabetics, beware!

It seems pretentious to me if there is an underlying implication that the main meal of the day in the evening is not allowed to be called dinner, because the people concerned know 'dinner' is reserved for the sort of meal most ordinary people will almost never have - elaborate, grand etc. But they they themselves know they will indeed have that sort of 'dinner' from time to time, even if not every night, and they know the difference.

Once 'dinner' just meant the main meal. Supper, once, was what your husband calls it, Snickers, a bit of something before bed when a bigger meal, dinner, had been eaten earlier at at lunch or in the evening- for upper class people too.

Probably now working class people don't have dinner at lunch time so often, but have it at night instead, certain people feel caught up with by them and so have changed the name of their meal to supper accordingly to separate themselves.

Maybe I am reading too much into it. But supper has taken over from dinner as a word in a certain class and there must be a reason.

I don't like the word "tea" either. "I'm having my tea". No your friggen not. You're having your dinner or your supper.

Supper is a good word.

Words that the children were not allowed to use include -
The T word (much, much worse even than the C word)
Lounge
Patio
Serviette
Settee
Living room
Dinner time

Atlanta

Tbh, I can't drink a big glass of DD's godmother's tea. It's lovely, but it's just so sweet She usually also has sugarfree tea. (And I like to mix the two...)