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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

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

465 replies

ConfusedWife1234 · 29/07/2018 15:19

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?

OP posts:
manaftermidnight · 30/07/2018 19:45

So,at school. They have dinner ladies who serve up.Not lunch ladies

We have lunchtime supervisors. Dinner ladies is rather last century.

Why assume your school is any kind of arbiter for anywhere else?

manaftermidnight · 30/07/2018 19:47

**Ice
*Fudge
*Vegetables
*Fruits
*Sweet Pastry
*Pastry with Cheese
*Cake
*Nougat
*Rice Pudding
*things involving marzipan

Ok, ice as in ice cream etc, yes. Fruits yes. Sweet pastry, yes (not all kinds though, some would be breakfast etc). Cake yes. Rice pudding yes. Marzipan things, depends which things but yes.

Vegetables, cheese pastry no. Nougat and fudge would be considered sweets/confectionary, not dessert.

LipstickHandbagCoffee · 30/07/2018 19:48

Ice
Fudge an accompaniment with cuppa tea, unless you mean fudge cake.thars dessert
Vegetables an accompaniment to a meal or crudités

Fruits melon ,strawberries etc are a dessert
Sweet Pastry like flan etc, dessert
Pastry with Cheese no idea ive never served this
Cake dessert
Nougat dessert
Rice Pudding yuck! But a dessert
things involving marzipan again a dessert

XiCi · 30/07/2018 19:54

FGS don't ask anyone to come over for a Nosh as pp suggested, that could get you into real trouble.
(Nosh is slang for a BJ GrinGrin) Could have a much bigger misunderstanding than confusing dinner and tea!

Original poster
ConfusedWife1234 · 30/07/2018 19:54

Oops, I meant to say custard not fudge... I just looked it up in the dictionary because you said it was confectionary.

Yes, I meant Icecream not the Ice for drink... but I heard that some of the things you eat are also called Ice. In my language we only have one word for all sorts of Ice.

OP posts:
Original poster
ConfusedWife1234 · 30/07/2018 19:57

Thanks for giving me a headship, XiCi. ;)

OP posts:
Original poster
ConfusedWife1234 · 30/07/2018 19:58

*heads-up, stupid autocorrect.

OP posts:
Nothisispatrick · 30/07/2018 20:11

The dinner ladies argument doesn't really work as I would call them either lunch ladies (or by their actual job title which is midday supervisor) and I would refer to the food served as a school lunch, not school dinner.

dementedpixie · 30/07/2018 20:18

We only really call ice cubes Ice. Ice cream is a dessert/pudding
Custard is a pudding especially with cake!

dementedpixie · 30/07/2018 20:19

What do you mean by pastry with cheese?

dementedpixie · 30/07/2018 20:20

Nougat is not a dessert. Is it not a chewy sweet?

Original poster
ConfusedWife1234 · 30/07/2018 20:22

Puff Pastry shells with cheese, very tasty.

OP posts:
dementedpixie · 30/07/2018 20:25

No that wouldn't be pudding. Maybe a starter or an accompaniment to the main meal

Original poster
ConfusedWife1234 · 30/07/2018 20:27

Yes, sort of... but you can half-freeze it and mince it and build like a little cake from it (makes sense as I explain it. I do not discuss cooking in English a lot and am lacking vocabulary). The brown nougat, you know... not Turkish nougat.

OP posts:
KateMcD451 · 30/07/2018 20:29

I say breakfast, lunch and tea but then if I have tea out it's dinner. I use pudding/afters and dessert interchangeably too but I have lived in a few different places Blush

dementedpixie · 30/07/2018 20:33

I don't know what brown nougat is. Can you link to it or put a picture?

Original poster
ConfusedWife1234 · 30/07/2018 20:35

I cannot link but wiki has a picture calling it Viennese nougat.

OP posts:
Original poster
ConfusedWife1234 · 30/07/2018 20:36

... in the wiki article on nougat.

OP posts:
manaftermidnight · 30/07/2018 20:45

German style nougat is basically solid but squidgy nutella.

MereDintofPandiculation · 30/07/2018 20:46

It's not always a roast dinner, it only is when its dinner! If its eaten early, for lunch, then its a roast lunch. I've never, ever heard anyone talk about a "roast lunch".

And of course dinner can move around the day. I used to have it at 1pm, nowadays we have it between 6 and 7pm.

manaftermidnight · 30/07/2018 20:48

You've never heard of that ubiquitous term "Sunday Lunch".

Dinner is the evening meal. It does not (for the vast majority of people) move around the day. You used to call your lunch dinner, now you call your dinner dinner.

MereDintofPandiculation · 30/07/2018 20:50

Oh, btw, now that we are talking about different rooms... when people/the gentlemen go to a different room to smoke after they have eaten... It was the ladies who went, leaving the gentlemen to their port and cigars. But that was big posh houses with lots of servants - I wouldn't know whether it still happens, not being part of that bit of society.

mydogisthebest · 30/07/2018 20:50

I say Breakfast, Lunch, Tea. I don't use dinner but if I did it would be for lunchtime meals. That is why at school they are called Dinner Ladies.

I am from London and just about everyone I know calls meals the same as I do

manaftermidnight · 30/07/2018 20:51

For those who insist it is definitely dinner at midday and tea in the evening, can they tell us what tea parties and dinner parties are?

KateMcD451 · 30/07/2018 21:00

Wow there's a few people getting a bit too worked up about what we should be saying. Let's just agree there are regional differerences and as long as you're not calling your breakfast lunch then all is good. (I have to giggle at Supper though, it always sounds lla bit Dickensian to me Grin)