AIBU to ask which is the most neutral term dinner, supper or tea?

[ConfusedWife1234]

AIBU to ask which the most neutral term for dinner/supper/tea is? I am not a native speaker and I have been told that your usage of the word says a lot about ethnic ancestry, social class, if your are from the UK, US or another English speaking country, part of the country and so on. Which is the most neutral term and when do I use which one?

You'll get different answers from everyone on this! But for me, from the south coast: tea = a drink, dinner = evening meal, supper = posh/pretentious word for dinner!

Tea. If you're referring to the last main meal of the day, around 6ish...
Dinner means lunch to lots of northerners (hence school "dinner ladies ") but an evening meal to many southerners.

Supper is like an extra light evening meal I'd say.

Exactly the same as Rosetintedview here.

Thanks for your answer.

Might I as another question?

So in the morning you have breakfast, right?

At midday you have lunch and after lunch you have pudding or sweet things, am I right?

Confusedwife1234 can you tell us where you are? Then we can tell you what the accepted 'norm' is for your part of the UK :-)

Food.

None of them are neutral to everyone and ignore anyone who tells you one is neutral to everyone. The most neutral one for where you live depends on where you live, so you'd have to tell us that for us to tell you the most neutral one in your circumstances.

I’m Northern but was at boarding school down south so have weird hybrid ideas!

Tea is what kids have when they get in from school (4ish) dinner is the evening meal about 7/8ish, supper is a late dinner or a late snack before bed (maybe a round of toast or something!)

We do all 3 in this house

Dinner is the evening meal. It is to me the most neutral term.

Tea is what small children have at 5pm, or what people from the North of England call dinner.

Supper is a small meal, taken in the evening before bed (i.e. what children who have had their ‘tea’ at 5pm might have later on). Middle class people often use this to mean dinner, and it’s a class marker of sorts.

As a non native speaker, use dinner!

There’s no confusion ever about lunch. Even people who say dinner is the midday meal understand that’s what you mean by lunch.

Tea can be the drink and supper can be a tiny pre-bed snack (cookies and milk in the US) so I’d say the safest word for a 6-8pm meal is “dinner”. Most restaurants would use this to take both joints and indicate the menu choices at that time.

I would probably go with whatever is most used in the place where you live.

I really wouldn't worry about this. It isn't a case of a neutral term but is very geographic. North/South and there are also the class aspects. If you are speaking English as a foreign language, a rough rule of thumb is that dinner is your major meal of the day (so for some it will be midday, others evening) for most people supper is a late evening snack. Most of the other variances can be largely ignored. Just use the same words as the people you are with. There is no right or wrong. If in doubt ask your friends what they prefer to call meals. Most people really don't mind. I have a friend who calls her midday meal Dinner-lunch. Schools used to call it dinner, now mostly say lunch.

Each of those is a different meal at a different time of the day.

Lunch is light meal, middle of the day

Dinner is your main meal, this may be your midday or evening meal

'Tea' is a pot of tea, slice of cake, late afternoon

Supper is a snack mid evening, before bed

Again pudding/sweet/afters/dessert all different things.

Tea is the evening meal, so I'd say the most neutral. Dinner is in the middle of the day! Supper is tea and toast in the evening...

I'm from Yorkshire - tea is your everyday evening meal, dinner is a meal you go out for (a restaurant or invited to someone's home) or a cooked midday meal at school (as in school dinners/dinner ladies). Supper is a slice of toast or a bowl of cornflakes before bed!

I'm in Scotland so for me it is:

Breakfast
Lunch
Dinner

Tea is a drink and Supper is a snack before bedtime

As rina says, none of those are neutral to everyone.

I'm also not from the UK, and I use 'dinner' for the main evening meal.

Yes, lunch is probably the most neutral term for the meal you eat in the middle of the day though again, not to everyone everywhere but eating something sweet at the end of that meal would not be the norm unless you were in a restaurant. And what you call the sweet course at the end of a meal is also class-specific. The U term for it is 'pudding', but 'dessert' is widely used, even though technically that means something different. 'Sweet' is non-U.

I think dinner for the evening meal is most neutral as people will generally understand you and it will be clear you mean a meal. There aren't a lot of contexts in which it's genuinely going to confuse someone that you meant the evening meal rather than around midday. On the offchance that it did arise it should be easy to sort out within a couple of sentences. (I've never actually heard that happen, only once or twice confusion over tea as meal versus tea as drink.)

I can think of quite a few working class northerners who say lunch and dinner so would say those are more established terms across the country. And if you are speaking with a non-British accent, I think people would expect those. Saying 'tea' would be 'going native' if living in certain areas.

Supper can mean a later or lighter meal than dinner. I am used to people using it for the sort of meal they might have alone or informally whereas dinner would be a meal at the table with several people.

Dinner as the default will make you understood, I'd say, whereas tea and supper could be more passive vocabulary.

@Newyearnewme So pudding/sweet/afters/dessert are different things? I did not know. What is the difference?

In my household tea was a mid afternoon meal consisting of little bits like sandwiches or whatever rather than a full cooked meal.

Dinner was a sort of generic meal word that could mean anything that wasn't breakfast.

Supper was the evening meal.

Another way to look at it - if you were eating out - would your friend invite you to lunch or dinner? Or if its an evening function would you be invited to tea or dinner?

But just to confuse you, you might take afternoon tea with a friend! But that's not a meal.

Dinner

Breakfast is in the morning, on waking.
Lunch is around 1pm
Tea is something children eat in the nursery or as a stopgap between a later formal dinner.
Supper is an informal evening meal eaten either at home, with friends around (kitchen supper) or in a restaurant/pub but only one or two courses.
Dinner is a more formal occasion with a dress code, at least three courses and by invitation. A dinner can be a fundraising event, arranged by your club or in a restaurant or private house.

In the North and Midlands, most working class people will call their evening meal “tea”.

Most middle class people, and most people in the South will call their evening meal “dinner”. This is also the term universally used in the catering and hospitality industry to distinguish the evening meal from lunch, the mid-day meal, do is probably the most neutral word.

Posh people will call their evening meal “supper”. Everyone else thinks this is pretentious and silly.

pudding/sweet/afters/dessert are different things? I did not know. What is the difference?

See, I would regard these as the same I.e. a sweet item after the main meal