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?

I was brought up in the North but now live in the south-west. When I was a child in the north, you'd call the evening meal tea (eg if you invited someone over for tea after school, they'd expect fish fingers and beans, not cake), but I don't know whether that was because we were kids (so the evening meal is a bit less formal, and earlier) or because we were northern. There's the phrase 'you'll have had your tea,' which is a joke on stingy Northerners/Scots who might firmly say it to signal they will not be feeding you.

If I were inviting adult friends over for an evening meal nowadays, I'd call it dinner. If I invited them for tea I'd probably mean the beverage.

Supper makes me think of Hyacinth Bucket and people in Penny Vincenzi books. I would feel daft to use it. I know a handful of people who say it- doesn't sound daft coming from them but they're posh.

Dinner and lunch can be used interchangeably imo. Tea is your standard evening meal but if you were eating late or out or it was some sort of event it would turn into dinner.

Is there such a link with class and region in other languages when it comes to meals?

I'm from Scotland and I use the word lunch for midday meal. My GPs called it dinner and it was their main meal of the day. My mum calls lunch "snack" which is just wrong imo.
I call my evening meal (main meal of the day) tea or dinner.
Supper to me is a large snack/small meal late evening.

Prince William and his chums do not say dessert

The Queen eats at The Ivy - it has a dessert menu. I reckon the Queen has a good grasp of her own language
www.the-ivy.co.uk/menus/

I'm in south and use tea or dinner for evening meal. Lunch or dinner for midday meal. Supper sounds wanky to me unless it literally is a crafty bowl of cornflakes at 10pm.

I wouldn't worry about it too much - in our household, we have breakfast, lunch, and we tend to say tea or dinner for our main evening meal. We interchange. Supper is definitely a snack before bed

I've said it before and I'll say it again, you cannot define social class to non British people

That's just nonsense though isn't it? You think other English speaking nations don't both have social classes and find it quite easy to understand the British version? You're not as mysterious as you think you are.....

What bizarre logic NewYearNewMe !

I'd be surprised if the Queen eats at The Ivy much - but how a restaurant chooses to name a section of its menu and how she refers to a course are totally un-related.

The Queen almost certainly calls it "pudding" not "dessert".

Oh god and yes we now have this concept of 'snack' introduced by DC which means eating in the gaps between other meals i.e. between breakfast and lunch, or lunch and tea. This was not the norm when I was growing up. So the upshot isI now seem to spend the day providing food and don't really care what things are called.

Whereabouts are you OP?

I am in South East and would say tea is a hot drink OR afternoon tea is scones and tiny sandwiches eaten somewhere naice.

Lunch is eaten in the middle of the day.

Dinner is our evening meal. If I heard someone refer to lunch as dinner I would just assume they were Northern.

Supper is for greedy buggers who get peckish past 9pm

Definitely pudding, not dessert or sweet.

21st
But there are some weird nuances to British class system.

DH has a middle class background. I don't. Based on income, homeownership (lovely house in middle class area), both in professional jobs then technically me and DH are middle class. But then there's things I say and do that DH says is a giveaway that I'm still very working class in ways.

To be neutral are best off using:

Breakfast
Lunch
Dinner

In restaurants, the Lunch menu is the midday meal and Dinner is the evening meal.

Tea is a drink.

Could I have cheese for pudding or does pudding have to be sweet?

Pudding is something sweet. You could have cheese instead of pudding, or after pudding as a separate course "the cheese."

Except in France, where the cheese course is served before pudding.

And in the USA, where they serve cheese as an hors'd'oeuvre, i.e. before the starter. (philistines!)

The Queen eats at The Ivy - it has a dessert menu.

I highly doubt she calls it dessert!

We have Break Fast, Lunch and Sups.

But there are some weird nuances to British class system

of course there are, but that doesn't mean us non British people are incapable of learning them! If anything, we often see them better as outsiders since those inside any given system can sometimes not notice their own oddities.

Im in scotland...i have breakfast in the morning, dinner at midday, tea in the evening and supper before bed if im still hungry lol. The only time i ever have supper at tea time is on burns night or if i go to the chippy :) once in a while i will go out for brunch tho (breakfast/lunch) which we only call brunch cos it sounds better than brinner

@21stCenturyMrsBennett

Save your sarcasm. It was a genuine question.

Tea, a drink in a cup or mug.
Dinner, a word only used for lunch at schools
Lunch, meal in the middle of the day
Supper, meal eaten in the evening.

I am from London, yes I am posh, soz about that can't be helped, but lots of people in my part of London posh or not, use supper for the evening meal. No-one uses dinner for any meal except school children.

It was?

I'm in the South East, not too far from London. I've always said breakfast, lunch and dinner. Supper I refer to as a light snack/small meal eaten in the evening, before bed. We don't have supper in our house now, but growing up we would only have supper on a Sunday because we would have a roast at around 1-2ish, but the rest of the week our main meal, dinner, was at 6pm. So supper wasn't really a thing for us.

I only use tea when referring to the drink. I call anything after dinner a pudding, whether sweet or savoury, but sometimes call it a dessert if in a restaurant. Never heard anyone IRL call it a sweet.

My point being The Ivy caters to a certain class, it's certainly not the Wimpey is it!

There are so many connotations in our language from toilet to mirror to lounge that define class origins. From the way a man knots his tie, to whether he wears brogues or Oxfords, whether they are black or brown. If you own fish knives or not, if you eat your pudding with fork or a spoon!

Other class structures are much more defined, ours is really quite peculiar.

Of course they aren't incapable of learning them, but given that quite a bit of understanding the class system is based on socialisation and tacit knowledge then it is vastly more difficult.

E.g. I could see someone in an area near me who drives a porsche, has hair and make up and nails done inmaculately, deisgner clothes and designer bag and I wouldn't think middle class. I would think common, fur coat and no knickers. So they have all the obvious features of wealth but that wouldn't give them class.

Our family evening meal is called supper.

That's what all our family & friends call it too. Don't think anyone thinks we are pretentious! Some people might think we are quite posh, that's up to them, I couldn't give a toss.

If we are having guests round for a more formal meal in the evening, then we call it dinner - candles & napkins on the table. This would have four courses:

Starter
Main course
Pudding
Cheese

However, we might also have friends round for a less formal evening meal which we would still call supper. Some of my friends would call it "kitchen supper". As we don't have a separate dining room, we don't.

Depends on where you come from, how old you are, who brought you up... NOTHING is wrong and NOTHING is right!!!

Breakfast (if you can be bothered) is the first meal or snack of the day.
Brunch is later in the morning when you're too late for breakfast and too early for lunch - usually a fry up!
Lunch is the middle of the day meal, when and if you get a chance (bloody work).
Tea is in the mid afternoon, usually pot(s) of tea and scones / toast or similar (haven't had this for years - my grandma used to do it though).
Supper is an informal evening meal (home or out at friends or in a pub - it's what we have at home).
Dinner can be formal, either in a restaurant or at friends.

I've always called the sweet course after the main meal of lunch / supper or dinner, "pudding".

I'm not posh, and I'm not pretentious! Just followed on from previous generations and the things they said for daily life. My son (13) says the same, unless he's with his dad who has other names for the meals - but we won't go there....!