To think that you’re evening meal is called ‘tea’ not ‘dinner’?!

[Biscoffaddict]

I see so many posters on here referring to their evening mea, as ‘dinner’, but in real life I’ve never met anyone who does this and it’s always ‘tea’. It always has been tea. My parents call it tea, my grandparents called it tea, my friends call it tea, my work colleagues call it tea etc. ‘Dinner’ is the meal you have in the middle of the day and that’s why school dinner ladies, are called dinner ladies!

I don’t know but I find it quite irrationally annoying! Surely I’m not alone?!

And lunch is in the middle of the day unless it's at school then it's a school dinner.

I'm in the South East

I'm WC from the Midlands. We always ate breakfast dinner tea and supper. Now I eat dinner with some people and tea with others. But I always eat breakfast and lunch, if I'm eating during the day.

@Inastatus For those who call their evening meal ‘supper’ what would you call a later snack/meal before bedtime? Just interested, it doesn’t bother me one jot what people call their meals.

Supper would be eaten at 7 or 8 pm, so no need for a snack before bed.

To be honest, the idea of shovelling calories into one’s face at bedtime horrifies me. I could understand it for manual workers in the olden days, but seems so unnecessary for office workers in centrally heated houses. No wonder we have an obesity epidemic!

I didn’t realise before MN but apparently it’s a regional.

Growing up when very young I thought it was an age thing, as us kids had tea earlier, and parents would have a later dinner and have dinner parties.

Since leaving primary school I’ve called it dinner. Lunch has ever been thus. “Dinner ladies” has never registered as the anomaly it is under the above rules.

@joystir59

Picky bits is a Mumsnet term. I think it's a bastardisation of picnic. I think it sounds stupid too. We do sometimes have picnic lunch before a shop, if we have bits and bobs that need using up.

@thepeopleversuswork

FFS

I’m really over these goady, faux innocent “aren’t people strange” threads. I’m sure OP knows full well it’s a regional thing and at least half the country doesn’t call it “tea.

Try another one this is really old now.

TBF, it's usually the other way around, posters who 'can't understand' how some people call it breakfast, lunch and dinner. In both cases, they do understand perfectly well, they just don't approve of the what the other calls them. Neither is wrong, but they're both being twatty about it.

This won't help, but it should be 'your' in your title, not 'you're'.

I’ve never ever heard it called tea. That’s because I’m a soft southerner. Also a tossy wanky middle class southerner 😂 this is what friend from up north have been known to call me - in jest. I think.

Breakfast
Lunch
Tea - meal mainly for children before 6 or high tea
Supper - main evening meal unless going out or more formal dinner party

Depends what I am having. I am from the South. If I had a full meal lunchtime that would be my dinner. Then later on I would have a lighter meal - tea.

If on the other hand I had a small meal lunchtime - that would be lunch! Then later, a fuller meal would be Dinner.

I mainly eat a dinner on a Sunday only midday.

Mind you , if I come home tired from work and just have toast I guess that would be tea!

Born in London and now live in Kent. No one I know calls an evening meal for adults tea.

Breakfast lunch and dinner for us too - I agree with the regional aspect

With ref to a pp I love a second breakfast when doing a lot of physical work. I used to run a Greek guest house. I would walk my dog's, eat first breakfast and then clean the rooms, then eat second breakfast. Then siesta, then walk the dogs, eat something and do some more work.

I call the middle of the day meal lunch and the third meal tea and dinner interchangeable

Breakfast, lunch and dinner. Though at school we used to call lunch dinner too.

No one I know says supper and I'm in London.

@FiveGoMadInDorset

Breakfast Lunch Tea - meal mainly for children before 6 or high tea Supper - main evening meal unless going out or more formal dinner party

Out of interest, would you use the word luncheon for a formal lunch?

I've never heard it used in the U.K. but I did hear it used at work in Sydney for a formal lunch.

Surely you're able to wrap your head around the fact that there are different words for things in different parts of the country..?

Dinner or supper depending on the time I eat. I drink tea.

Arent we lucky to only have to worry about what to call all our lovely meals?

Breakfast lunch and dinner here
Lunch-ladies at school...or officially lunchtime supervisor. In cornwall

Dinner is the main meal of the day. Hence why the evening meal is dinner but “Christmas Dinner” is at lunchtime.

YANBU to call it tea but YABVVVU to be annoyed that other people call it dinner.

I call 'dinner' the main meal of the day, whether I have it at lunchtime or in the evening. The other meal is then lunch or tea/supper depending how late I eat it.

I prefer coffee. I regard tea as a health drink.

@BlackLambAndGreyFalcoln

I have never in my life called it "tea" or known anyone who does so. "Tea" is a hot drink not a name of a meal!

Well then, this thread is an education for you, isn't it? Tea can be a meal.