To not understand

[TeamSpirit]

Why do english people call dinner for tea? What do you call tea then?
Not trying to be funny - just want the story behind..

I'm from the south - Breakfast, dinner/lunch, dinner/tea. I quite often call lunch dinner and tea time dinner time

Those of you saying an evening meal is always dinner - what about if it's just sandwiches and cake? What do you call it then?

If the evening meal is called tea, it's probably not eaten late and isn't something complicated.

I call lunch lunch and evening meal is tea unless we go out then it’s dinner. However I would call a midday meal at school a school dinner 🤷🏼‍♀️

Those of you saying an evening meal is always dinner - what about if it's just sandwiches and cake? What do you call it then?

I call it "sandwiches and cake for dinner!" Or "not having dinner".
Sandwiches and cake is afternoon tea, surely. Not an evening meal. If you're going to go off piste for one evening meal you don't need a standard term for it.

I'm from the south coast and say breakfast, lunch, dinner, partner is from the Essex/Suffolk border and says breakfast, lunch, tea. We now say what do you want for dinner to the adults, and tea if we're asking the kids 🤷🏻‍♀️

For me its breakfast, lunch, dinner. Or if say at the weekend we had a roast at lunch time I'd call that dinner and if we ate something that evening it would be supper. Tea is always just the hot drink with some biscuits where I am, regardless of time of day. But other people in my locale do it differently, my husband calls supper tea and he's only from 20 minutes up the road. My mothers family are quite well to do, I think that's where we've got our suppers from.

Hampshire born and bred. midday meal to me always lunch, evening meal interchangeable, depends on circumstances. If i'm speaking to the children or close friends/relatives i might say "what do you want for tea" or "tea's ready" or "shall we have tea at 6 then go to the cinema"

If i'm arranging a meal out we go out for dinner, or if for example talking about having a roast at my parents in the evening would be going for dinner as in "sunday dinner", as "sunday tea" doesnt sound right, nor does "roast tea"!! a Sunday roast at midday is "sunday lunch" or a "roast lunch"

To add a spanner in the works, sometimes we say we are going out for "an evening meal"

I can see how its confusing for anyone new to personal meal naming ways

I think breakfast is getting an easy ride here.

When I was growing up (in the South) we had tea once we were all home from school or work, so probably around 6.00 (my father left for work really early and went to bed early so we ate early. I had school dinners because that is what they were called.

At some stage after I left home it became dinner and was around 7.30 - 8.00. It is still dinner and is around 8 - 9.

Lunch was always around mid-day. Tea then became something you had in the afternoon with cake/sandwiches/scones and was rare due to working hours.

Tea has always been a drink too. Never had dinner in the day time.

Yes, we can't argue about what we call breakfast (hopefully).

It's breakfast dinner, tea here. I know people call it differently in different parts of the country. Neither way is better, so those getting annoyed about other people calling their evening meal tea can fuck off quite frankly.

DP has started calling dinner 'lunch'. I don't know what that's about. He's as northern working class as they come.

West Midlands. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, supper. But sometimes supper is also dinner depending on if we have company.

Breakfast, dinner and tea here, from Yorkshire.

Northern bias here but living midlands - tea is casual everyday evening meal, dinner is after 7pm and generally is more formal with more cutlery and wine glasses etc and even candles (ha ha) but I think Tea came from afternoon tea or possibly from the fact that working class Tea is what you had with all meals and actually an evening meal for kids might be tea and thin bread etc. So I think Tea has more working class roots than Dinner which is more middle/upper or those "reaching"

Its all just food and not worth getting in a snit for

OP, you don;t understand the fact that people call different meals differnt name sin various parts of teh country?? Why not?

Scotland here: breakfast, lunch, tea. Tea is a drink and also the main meal of the day. But if we go out for an evening meal, it's dinner!

It's simple - dinner is the main meal. If it's in the middle of the day you have dinner then tea. If it's at the end of the day you have lunch then dinner.

In our house, we have Breakfast, Lunch and Supper. No tea of any kind.

I’m in the north.

We have breakfast, lunch, tea is either a cup of tea or afternoon tea, dinner (evening meal) and supper.

Another northerner here - but it's breakfast, lunch and then tea (if at 5/6 and just a basic meal) or dinner (if it's later and/or a bit posher!) Like, I wouldn't call it 'tea' if I was going to a restaurant at 8pm, but I wouldn't call it "dinner" if I was making pizza at half 5.

But then... dinner ladies were dinner ladies. Did other people call them lunch ladies?

Breakfast, dinner and tea. I'm from East Yorkshire

Did other people call them lunch ladies?

Lunch staff at my DD’s school.

EXCEPT on Sundays or Christmas when lunch was dinner, but only if we had a Sunday dinner, if we have a normal lunch it would be Sunday lunch.

Absoloutely!

I've never used "tea" for dinner. I grew up with "supper" for main evening meal but that's been consigned to history now.

If someone said "what do you want for tea?", I'd know they meant the main evening meal but if they said "do you want to go out for tea?", I would be expecting cucumber sandwiches and scones.

Any of this helping OP?

My Lancashire grandparents called the evening meal tea, and a snack before bedtime supper.

East Midland here but bilingual due to friends calling it different things, so I just go along to suit the audience. I think it all comes down to this ... if you had dinnerladies at school it's Breakfast, Dinner, Tea. But if you had lunchtime supervisors it's Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner. I work in a 'Breakfast, Dinner, Tea office but our boss (who's much posher than us) talks about making supper ... not a clue where this meal fits in!

P.S. I am also fluent in those round things made of bread, having worked in a lot of different UK cities. Rolls, barms, breadcakes, cobs, baps etc. etc.

So if you call it breakfast / dinner / tea and someone asked asked you out for dinner, would you assume that's in the middle of the day or the evening?