Is "having my tea" a northern thing?

[Queenoftheblitz]

I'm a working class southerner. The only tea I have is in a cup with milk and sugar.
On mn a lot of posts talk about their evening meal as"tea", "what shall i make for tea" etc.
Do any southeners call it tea?

"How can you not know that? hmm"

Exactly. No TV in your house?
Never seen the Royal Family? 'What did you have for your tea?' asked by Mam to Denise every time they see each other.

Breakfast, lunch, dinner. My mum was from South Wales but wanted to sound posh, and my dad is from the Middle East where they usually adopt the same order. It wasn't until I came to live here that I realised it's a big class thing.

As an aside, DH is a northerner and says 'Games' for P.E. and 'pudding' for dessert. He's obviously wrong but I let it slide we live in the south east so fuck knows what the children will end up sounding like.

I have an aversion to the word 'supper'. I just can't stand the sound of it.

Me too. It sounds pretentious when middle class people say it.

And I can't say "tea" because it reminds me of Sally Webster circa 1995 "making baked beans for tea" for her girls.

I say dinner(lunch) and tea (dinner) I'm from the south east and most people around me say the same

Following the same theme , ( for me )
brew or cuppa ? ( brew )
dessert or pudding ? ( pudding )

For me, born in Yorkshire live in East Midlands it's breakfast (obviously!) but then it depends on when the meal is eaten and what is eaten. So a big meal is dinner no matter what time it is. A light meal might be lunch, might be supper or might be tea but all depends on time and content.

For me tea is the traditional low tea - i.e. small sandwiches, cakes, biscuits and a drink that you sort of have as either a meal to tide over (say for example between breakfast and a much later evening dinner), but that same meal I would categorise as supper if it was the last meal of the day after a dinner earlier on the in day.

Dinner and tea in Ireland as well.

How can you not know that? hmm"

Exactly. No TV in your house?
Never seen the Royal Family? 'What did you have for your tea?' asked by Mam to Denise every time they see each other.

I should have titled the thread "do any non-northerners say tea"?
Of course I know it's a northern thing but I wondered if any southerners were using the term these days.

Northerner here. Breakfast, lunch and then tea/dinner for me.

Tea is what I eat when I have my evening meal before 6pm. Dinner is anything after.

Packed lunches
Hot dinners
Never the other way round. I'm northern and always say tea but lunch/dinner depends on the meal and whether it's hot or col

Morning - breakfast

afternoon midday meal - dinner.

Evening meal - tea.

snack before you go to bed (toast or crumpets or whatever)- supper

The end

For me tea is the traditional low tea - i.

I've heard of a high tea. How do they differ?

the packed lunch but school dinner thing does make me go

(although I know some people say school lunch, but dinner ladies seems universal?)

Breakfast
Lunch
Dinner
Supper

Tea is something you drink.

Dinner and tea here.

I use both dinner and tea for evening meal and lunch for well lunch.

It's in context really if it's after 2pm and you are talking about tea or dinner it's in context for an evening meal.

Scottish with some English background/family etc.

I have breakfast, lunch & tea.

I have my main meal at lunchtime, so dinner would seem wrong for my evening meal & somehow for my lunchtime meal-even though it was dinner ladies at school!

Supper to me is a biscuit & hot drink before bed.

@LaContessa There's nothing wrong with 'pudding'

Lunch and tea. I'm essentially a southerner, now residing in the SW. very ordinary background though, whereas some of the more middle class kids I went to school with called it 'supper'. For me supper is a late night snack

I'm from Yorkshire and have always had breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Never said tea for a meal (parents also northern).

London here.
Breakfast, Lunch, afternoon / cup of tea, Dinner

Supper is vair vair posh.

Funnily enough at primary school we had “dinner ladies” at lunchtime

LaContessa DD is is southwest born and bred with one southern parent (central south, I certainly used to sound more SE than SW but I suspect my accent has shifted) and one northern. She mostly sounds INCREDIBLY posh but with flat northern ‘a’ sounds. Vocab is all southern middle class with the exception that she stuck firmly with tea as her evening meal. And she pronounces ‘scone’ the right way

Cornish professional couple. Breakfast, lunch and tea, but if we go out in the evening it's always for dinner.

I'm from Kent,the only meal I'm absolutely secure in naming is breakfast....
I might say dinner or tea for the evening meal,depending on what it was.Growing up we had tea as an evening meal on days we'd had a cooked meal midday,and that "tea" would be salad,cold meat/tinned fish,bread/butter/jam/meat paste,and cake.
But if I was asking DH what his cooking plans were I'd quite likely say "what's for tea" even if it was going to be a proper cooked meal.Not always - I'm so confused.....