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!

Anyhow:

breakfast
lunch (I like to have a long lunch, at least an hour or more. But it doesn't seem to be the "done thing" in the UK, unfortunately)
-sometimes brunch, especially on Sundays
tea (afternoon snack)
supper

Dinner is something a bit fancier, it's a party. At least that's what I was taught in my English language lessons and seeing as DH (as a native speaker) uses the same terminology I've simply assumed that this is "normal". This is really interesting!

I've got a PROPER posh friend, and he calls his evening meal "supper". When I asked him why, he said that "dinner" meant a rather grand meal, very formal. Like a banquet with the Queen. But a supper is an informal evening meal that you'd have at home, or round at a friend's house.

I still say "dinner". Supper feels like I'm trying too hard to be posh.

Also, Nigel Slater is fantastic. He has given the world baked onions with parmesan and cream and thus has enriched the world forever. He can call his evening meal what he likes.

Word!

I kind of love the fact that Nigel is a bit odd and awkward. In America they'd have real Nigel writing the recipes but hire some suave George Clooney type as his on screen self.

Breakfast, Dinner, Tea. Supper is a wee snack you might have before bedtime- milk and bikkies or bread and butter.
But I am very old.

i had no idea how many people need a pre bedtime snack.

it feels very weird that should have a formal name 'the last supper' just realised it goes right back to jesus - not 'the last dinner'

Jesus and the Disciples if real was a long time ago not really relevant.....

YABU That's hilarious. Its not pretentious, just normal to many people, including me!! "Supper" is just our main evening meal. "Tea" is a drink with biscuits, although my husband was brought up using "Tea" to mean "supper". Never use "dinner" except when referring to "dinner parties" like my parents had in the eighties, a lot. "Lunch" is the middle-of-the-day meal.

Why is it cause for cringing? Says more about you that the user, I think!

Is Scotland it's supper for evening meal.

I use it interchangeably with dinner. If the evening meal is replete with vegetables and is something I have actually cooked and served on a proper plate with the possibility of icecream or yogurt and fruit afterwards then it is dinner. If it is a poached egg on toast with a splash of ketchup, or a bowl of soup with grated cheese and crackers or something similar then it is supper.

What is pretentious is people who have never previously described anything as "supper" suddenly start doing so.

People who have always said supper are not pretentious.

OK, who is ready for the pudding vs dessert bunfight?

just realised it goes right back to jesus - not 'the last dinner'

Not quite sure 'supper' is the word they'd have used in Ye Olde Israel...

'Come over for a special supper tomorrow, I might be gone for a while. Be sure to bring Judas!'

I have never used the word 'dessert' or 'sweet'. It's pudding.

zzzzz i apply same logic when someone from a working class background refers to lunch as 'me dinner' I don't think anything of it - I grew up with and know many people in midlands who do. it's common usage in that context.
I always called it lunch because my parents did.

Supper here is a small snack before bed, usually for kids.

Who cares?! Seriously, people get so wound up about such odd things. Why does it bother you if I call a meal tea, supper or dinner?

I was always taught to say breakfast, lunch, supper (if staying in), dinner if going out. Tea is a drink, never a meal and High Tea is a small meal of sandwiches, cake etc before a more formal dinner....but I totally understand that other people call their meals different things, and couldn't really give a stuff.

alteredimages

Isn't pudding simply the English (British) word for dessert?

Whereas Americans tend to say dessert instead of pudding?

Slightly veering off on a tangent, but I remember an episode of Frasier where they were all at Frasier's for brunch, but it was the middle of the afternoon! I was very confused.

Supper. Supper, supper, supper, supper, supper.

If you repeat it enough, it does sound odd. It looks odd on the page too.

I'm northern; brought up to say breakfast, lunch, supper.

I don't see anyone being 'wound up'.

Just musing really.

I was raised saying elevenses, lunch, supper and pudding, now I say snack and lunch, but use dinner and supper, and pudding and dessert interchangeably. I think I revert back to childhood usage when with siblings.

I think if you "hate hearing" a word in very common parlance, then that is being wound up!

Panicmode - 90% of the threads on here ponder over such and similar matters, they'd be no site left if nobody cared!!

QuietNameChange I think a lot of people in the UK now use dessert. You are usually offered a dessert menu in a restaurant, and I can't remember it ever being a pudding menu. Sweet is also used sometimes to mean pudding or dessert.

Semantically, I suppose pudding is a subset of dessert, because most puddings are desserts but most desserts are not puddings, in the treacle pudding sense.