To hate the term 'Tea'

[ditzyglamour]

I guess I know I am as it seems the majority use it. But to me, its dinner and growing up I can never recall hearing anyone refer to it as 'Tea'.

I just find it so flowery and annoying.

Got that off my chest now 😃.

Anyone else?

SinglePringle so if you were having sausage and mash at 6.30 would you call it supper?
Morning- breakfast
Mid morning- elevenses
Mid day- Lunch if you're going out or trying to be posh, otherwise dinner
Evening meal- tea.
Before bed- supper. Toast, malt loaf, bowl of cereal.

I'm northern, my friend is from London. He is always confused when I say "tea time" and is all "is that you making your millionth cup of tea, or actual food?"

I'm Northen and to me, it's breakfast, dinner and tea.

Dinner is eaten at around noon and your tea is what you have in the evening.

Supper would be something like toast or cheese and crackers eaten shortly before going to bed.

My Dad is from Kent originally and his family always had breakfast, lunch and dinner - very posh!

It's regional. There's nowt wrong wi' saying 'tea,' for your evening meal.

Bore off.

susan they were quite posh I guess but second generation immigrants to maybe they had ideas above their station. My mum, northern accent still intact after 45 years down south nearly passes out of anyone calls dinner tea.

Tea is a drink

I'm from Essex and it's always been breakfast lunch and dinner. Tea is a hot drink.

I hate the term tea when reference for food.
I don't think it can be regional, more like its a family saying.

Lunch is around midday, tea is sandwiches and twee cakes around 4pm then dinner is a cooked meal served around 8pm from what I understand

Rather limited perspective.

"Dinner" can refer to lunch as dinner -"school dinner".

"Tea" can be afternoon tea (which is lovely) from around 3-4.30. Hotels do "high tea" which is a full meal of fish and chips/scampi and chips / sausage and mash comfort food around 5-6 with cake.

"Dinner" is dinner in the evening.

"Supper" is any meal after 9 , whether a full savoury course and sweet or toast/cheese on toast.

Really, who cares?

YANBU- I hate it too!

It's still strange to me. I'm from the south of England, and my husband is from the north. There's many words and sayings we disagree (in a nice way) on.
To me it's breakfast, lunch and dinner. He says breakfast, dinner and tea. You get used to it.
(Example: him: "let's have ...... for tea". Me: "okay, I fancy that for dinner").

brekkie is worse

we have lunch & tea here (Lancashire)

dinner/supper just seems unspeakably pretentious

sorry

Breakfast - self explanatory.

Dinner - midday meal

Tea - evening meal

supper - light snack before bed such as slice of toast and cup of milk
(unless your name's Jemima/Rupert and you're posh hooray types then it's your evening meal )

Tea's not flowery, it's just the name for it! Everyone calls it tea Oop North and it's definitely not flowery.

Their evening meal is styled "tea" and it is not unusual to get fried slices of spam to go with the ubiquitous chips and white bread generously covered with butter.

Those funny northern types and their cheap, greasy foods. Bless them. I think you forgot to mention the sauce bottle on the table and the tea being strained through Nanna's old stocking.

Eh, that seems normal...

So nobody is allowed anything that makes them different to others anymore, then?

For me, its breakfast, lunch and tea. And I'm Northern.

but in this house "tea" is generally eaten at about 8pm. So I suppose it is "dinner".

I can't bear people calling the evening meal tea. I don't buy the regional thing, my family are northerners and have never referred to evening meal as tea.

Despite the evidence from numerous other northerners? Is your name Bucket by any chance?

My family were northerners. The midday meal might be lunch or dinner (though always the latter on Sunday obviously) ; usually we had 'high tea' in the evening, somewhere between 5 and 6. This would usually be some sort of cooked main course or a salad, and might be followed by cakes or some sort of afters (tinned peaches, jelly, angel delight ...). And of course the drink with it was tea.

On holiday, however, we might have afternoon tea and then dinner at 7 or 8.

Loving the contrast between the snobbery and the reverse snobbery on this thread.

YABU

Tea is, well, tea. Always has been, always will be.

I hate the term tea when reference for food

I don't think it can be regional, more like its a family saying

I assume you have no understanding, to paraphrase Iain Banks, of the weapons grade level of stupidity you have just displayed?

Midlands here. Breakfast, lunch, Dinner with dinner being the largest meal. On Sunday we have breakfast, Dinner, tea.

Supper is the slice of toast and Philly I am now eating and debating another.

Surely tea is a drink with jam and bread...

Southerner here.

Dinner = evening main meal
Tea = evening meal when main meal has been at lunch

So most days growing up I'd have breakfast, lunch, dinner. But we'd always have a roast lunch on a Sunday, so that was breakfast, lunch and tea.

But before playdates were invented we'd have friends round for tea - never dinner, even if it was a cooked meal.

Tea is a drink. Dinner is a meal.

@ujerneyson interesting! I guess perhaps their parents were taught 'dinner' when they learned English either abroad, in classes or if their original country was English speaking though - tea is pretty much just northern England, e.g. an American wouldn't say 'tea' for the evening meal. And after that if it sounds incorrect to you, you would be a bit when other people used it.

I'm a Londoner and never heard of tea for a meal except on Corrie and Mumsnet.