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!

Has anyone mentioned the Last Supper yet

Yes, many posts ago....

. lol I did ask!

When do you call dinner, dinner PeachyPip out of interest? I don't dispute that a lot of people say supper instead and have for quite a long time, but it is a pity.

St Cross is the first college in Oxford I've heard of calling dinner supper. Most say dinner and that does not mean a formal, special dinner.

It is not a question of no right or wrong, dinner used to be/is just a perfectly straightforward word for the main meal of the day, and it is normal to use it. It was what that meal was called when I was young too even though it was not elaborate though the table was laid and everyone sat down to eat it, had conversation etc.

I do think a particular social group is frightened of being like the people who used to consider their mid-day meal was dinner, and who then started to have short or skipped lunches, ate their main meal at night too and so called that dinner, began to have 'dinner parties' with prawn cocktail, buy M &S dinners for two etc.

Here linked are some etymological dictionary entries for supper and dinner.

supper (n.) Look up supper at Dictionary.com
mid-13c., soper, "the last meal of the day," from Old French soper "evening meal," noun use of infinitive soper "to eat the evening meal," which is of Germanic origin (see sup (v.1)).
Formerly, the last of the three meals of the day (breakfast, dinner, and supper); now applied to the last substantial meal of the day when dinner is taken in the middle of the day, or to a late meal following an early evening dinner. Supper is usually a less formal meal than late dinner. [OED]
Applied since c. 1300 to the last meal of Christ.

dinner (n.) Look up dinner at Dictionary.com
c. 1300, from Old French disner (11c.), originally "breakfast," later "lunch," noun use of infinitive disner (see dine). Always used in English for the main meal of the day; shift from midday to evening began with the fashionable classes. Childish reduplication din-din is attested from 1905.

"Polite persons do not take their supper in the nude!"

(But they do for other meals?)

KindDogsTail

I wouldn't call lunch 'dinner' and I generally wouldn't use it for my evening meal either. The term dinner sounds ok to me to and if someone used it I would mirror its use without thinking. It s just a normal word like supper is. My family and my DHs family usually use the word supper and have done for years. 🤷🏻‍♀️

I might call my evening meal tea though.

While the history of a word is interesting language evolves and regardless of its origins supper is a perfectly normal way to describe an evening meal.

I think the way that you seem to think you can tell what people's motivations are for using the word supper are hilarious and really pompous. I guess you can't understand the irony of it even with your extensive knowledge of Oxford Colleges, whatwhat. 😂

(I may be wrong and you may just be on the windup though, I cant quite tell. 🤔)

I wonder if the reason why some posters on here think people who use the word supper for the evening meal are posh or pretentious is that they say the word with a southern accent. It's the way they speak in London and the south east and a lot of northerners think all southerners sound posh lol. 😀

It grinds on me too. No such thing as tea or supper where I am, at least not for most folk. It's breakfast, lunch, dinner. Everything else is just a snack.

I think the way that you seem to think you can tell what people's motivations are for using the word supper are hilarious and really pompous. I guess you can't understand the irony of it even with your extensive knowledge of Oxford Colleges, whatwhat

You give yourself away with that sarcasm.

The allusion to Oxford and Cambridge colleges is just because in those places people use language easily and well. It takes no extensive knowledge.

My reasons may be wrong, but I was trying to find some. Supper is being used as the word for an evening meal by a certain cultural group of people and it did not used to be to the same extent. Why?

KindDogsTail, language evolves, and it's pointless asking why. It's like asking why gay doesn't mean happy anymore? Or why do kids use the word wicked to mean funny and not evil? I'm trained in Linguistics so I'm finding this discussion quite interesting.

Well DIzzy I am interested too. I am interested in why some people are loathe to say dinner now and why it has been evolving this way.

Why does David Cameron talk about 'kitchen suppers' or Nigella say 'supper'? Why are those people refusing to simply say breakfast, lunch, and dinner?

It is well known that sometimes people from a certain class try subconsciously to disassociate themselves from rising middle class people's habits or speech. It is not unreasonable to look for a reason there even if I am wrong.

I still think you are overthinking it. I can't be bothered to reread the thread but has anyone actually said words to the effect that they are 'loathe' to use the term dinner? I'd be suprised if anyone did. If the eloquent folk at Oxford and Cambridge can't decide between dinner or supper then surely thats because both are ok to use.

I accept that more people use dinner than supper and I completely understand that some people simply don't like the word. What I find objectionable is the insistence that people who use the word supper do so because they are being pretentious or whatever rather than just because that's what they've been bought up to use.

It is well known that sometimes people from a certain class try subconsciously to disassociate themselves from rising middle class people's habits or speech. 😂 I'm not sure it's that well known.

KindDogsTail. I'd love to know where you get your ideas from? Are you an academic or something? I find your posts weirdly old fashioned. Although! As I'm sure you've noticed my written English is not my strongpoint so I'm not criticising . .

Anyway, I better go and make supper. 🍟🍔🍺

That's different from hating it though, KindDogsTail. I think it's more the case that the word has different meanings in different parts of the country, as is clear from what people on here have said.
Dinner has different meanings too, quite clearly, that doesn't appear to be irritating for some reason?
And quite clearly supper meaning evening meal is not new; the Last Supper was clearly not a bedtime snack!
Supper comes from the French word souper, which means light evening meal.

Breakfast, lunch, dinner then supper. It's the same as breakfast so cereal or toast but in the night. I'm in Wales.

We sup our tea (dinner).

The parish 'pasty suppers' sounded yummy and I imagined they were held round oak tables by candlelight.

Tea - cups of tea, cake and bread and butter, 4pm;
Dinner - evening meal, you dress for it, there are lots of different knives and forks, and several courses;
Supper - evening meal, you may not get changed, it will probably be just family and / or good friends, it will not be formally served, 2 or 3 courses at most - but most likely one or two - just a main course (and maybe pudding)

Breakfast
Dinner
Tea
Supper - Toast before bed-ish

Breakfast
Brunch
Elevensies
Dinner
Snack
Tea
Supper
Midnight snack