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!

Where I'm from supper is v much a working class thing. Now I've heard it in my head in a posh voice I'm finding it hard to un-hear it

I'm the same as you OP, use of the word supper for your main evening meal (unless you are Nigella Lawson) really makes me cringe

I may well not be pretentious but that is how it sounds to me

I was brought up in a fairly MC household but both my parents have WC roots. Supper referred to a small snack (eg. cheese & crackers) before bed.

The thing that makes it sound pretentious to me is that despite being in my 40s, I can honestly say that until the last 10 years I had never heard anyone refer to their evening meal as supper (except Nigella on the telly), and I have mixed with plenty of people via University and work from diverse backgrounds (North, South, WC, MC). You can't tell me that all these people have always used the word supper, there must be a large proportion who have adopted it (either consciously or subconsciously) to sound a bit posh!

I don't think it's a case of trying to sound posh, but words do change meaning over time. Look at how the word gay has changed meaning; when I was a child it still meant happy.
To me, personally, the word dinner sounds pretentious when it doesn't refer to the midday meal, but to Americans it's simply the word they use.

shaggedthruahedgebackwards exactly! ace name by the way! that is what irked me, the word grates and i've noticed it jarringly thrown in with a feigned insouciance like it's common usage and always has been!
yet i've never heard a kid asking what's for supper or screaming i want my supper.
if i strain my memory I can only recall older very posh people using supper when i was younger and it being tolerated as something only they would say

Have you heard the phrase, 'go to bed without supper', newnameoldme? When I was little I thought it meant a bedtime snack! It was in the old American films and in fairytales like Jack and the Beanstalk. And yes, in old translations of the bible.
So obviously supper as evening meal is not a new meaning, it's just not very modern but has made a comeback.

YABU. Says a lot more about you then it does the people using this word. My grandma and my auntie both do supper. They are FAR from pretentious

Round here people have tea -that's fine. But I don't think you can still call it tea after 7 .30 pm ish. Feels wrong.
Dinner sounds like you are putting a large cooked meal on the table and it might be just a bowl of soup or some salad - supper sounds like a good word to describe it so YABU.
When I invite people over for an evening meal I often call it supper as I think it sounds more casual and takes the pressure of me. If I was having people round to 'dinner' I would feel that was more pretentious.

We've always called it supper. Many of my friends call it dinner. Apart from those who think the midday meal is dinner.

Who cares? It isn't pretentious, it's just customary for some and not for others.

. You can't tell me that all these people have always used the word supper, there must be a large proportion who have adopted it (either consciously or subconsciously) to sound a bit posh

I agree. think that what happened is that when working class people and children stopped having dinner as their main meal, (meat and two veg) at lunch time, children at school too - to the extent that M & S for example has "dine in for two" aimed at the most ordinary - dinner at night was no longer the right of the upper middle class. So, subconsciously scared of the word 'dinner' they changed it to 'supper'.

'Supper' to mean the main meal was not originally posh.

Eating dinner at night was once a bit more 'posh' though.

You can't tell me that all these people have always used the word supper, there must be a large proportion who have adopted it (either consciously or subconsciously) to sound a bit posh

That's rubbish. I bet 99% of people just use the term their parents used when they were kids. I use supper because my parents did and my kids use it because DH and I do. I don't believe people use supper to sound posh. That would be silly.

Haha at the OP complaining about the use of the word supper to sound posh while she throws around words like insouciance 🤓

(I had to copy and paste it as the chances of me spelling it correctly were non existent )

There is nothing more cringe worthy and pretentious than saying, It makes me cringe at the pretentiousness whenever I hear it (supper) used

"One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well." Virginia Woolf

"Meals
Food in College
Breakfast, lunch and dinner are all available in College during term time."

From a modern Oxford college website.

peachypip it's a lovely word enjoy it

KindDogsTails 🤔 🤷🏻‍♀️

and from another Oxford University Webpage

Supper menus served from 6pm - 6:45pm

(They do have another bit on dinner and feasts, 🤗 I think I'm going to start using feasts r our evening meal. I might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb 😂)

The word 'supper' irrationally raises my hackles so you are not being unreasonable OP (although it is irrational There was a great clip from the old sitcom Gimme Gimme Gimme where the irritating posh Suze says patronisingly "we must do supper one night" and Linda mocks it. I was with Linda on that one.

Hubby calls dinner (as in the meal we have in the evening) LUNCH! Drives me nuts!!

Seriously! He sits down at 6pm for his meal and says "this is a lovely lunch" or asks you at 7 in the evening "what do you want for lunch"??

LTB. And cancel the cheque.

Peachy
What St Cross College is doing there is changing the traditional use of language.

'Supper' is a Boden equivalent word.

Here is oriel College Oxford's information about meals in hall. Notice that even informal hall is called 'dinner'.

Meal Bookings and Menus

Meal Bookings

Oriel's online meal booking system can be accessed here.

"If you wish to attend the following meals, please book online by 11.30am on the day you wish to attend (except for weekend meals, which must be booked by 11.30am the previous Friday).

Informal Hall

Informal hall (dinner) is served at 6.30pm from Monday to Friday, and at 6.45pm on Sunday. Students need to book for dinner via the online Meal Booking System. Gowns are not worn to informal hall".

As a child supper and dinner were used interchangeably.
Tea for mid afternoon snack.
Supper was considered really for the later adults meal.
We weren't smart at all and I do think it is rather part of the country specific.

The Owl and the Pussycat did not have 'supper':

"They dined on mince, and slices of quince,
Which they ate with a runcible spoon;
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
They danced by the light of the moon,"

(from The Owl and The Pussycat by Edward Lear)

I've thought about it, and I don't actually think most people who say 'supper' are being pretentious. (Perhaps some are.) The word just annoys me.

They don't mean to be pretentious but the zeitgeist motive is in my opinion. It began to change after the 1960s.

One class felt chased by another on the one hand, and perhaps embarrassed by their class on the other, and so changed the word - making it as though saying 'dinner' is in itself pretentious except when they themselves are being very grand.

KindDogsTail. I really. think you are overthinking this. I've used supper for over 50 years because it's what my parents used it with me. My adult kids use it too. I think it's a zillion times more likely to be a regional thing that a snobbish thing. My parents would never have purposely used a word to sake posh.

I posted the link to the Oxford College use of tea to counter your post of an Oxford College using dinner just to show there is no right or wrong.