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?!

@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?!

Well, if all the people you have listed call it tea, rather than dinner, obviously you are NOT alone, for a start, @Biscoffaddict.

And surely the people on here, who do call it dinner - people like me -are just as real as you are, so their choice of name for their evening meal is just as valid as yours!

Basically, newsflash, people are different, and your way isn’t the only right way.

@urbanmist

Breakfast-dinner-tea.

Can we do the tea cake/roll/bap debate next?

Woah why did you forget bun in that list?!

What's insufferable about "supper" FFS?

What an insular post! Tea is what you have in the late afternoon, dinner is in the evening or supper if it’s earlier and less formal. Yea for the evening meal is dead common.

Yabu because it doesn't matter

Why is a Sunday lunch called a roast dinner?

@Notimeforaname

Nope. Breakfast in morning..lunch in afternoon..dinner in evening. 'Tea' is just a cup of tea here.

Very much the same for me.

I don't know in real life who calls their evening meal tea.

Tea is literally a cup of tea.

Tea time is 5pm ish. If you have you're evening meal at 7pm or perhaps later then it's dinner or supper because it's too late for tea time.

@Stifledlife

"Tea" is children's dinner time when they are small, so it's Breakfast Lunch Baby Tea time Dinner for adults and older children.

This is across 2 continents and many many years.

I agree. My dogs also eat tea... and we did have a dog, who was partial to a lug of beer.

Breakfast, lunch, dinner in my house.

I'm in the west coast of Scotland and it's breakfast, lunch and dinner. Tea is a drink.

whats lunch & when do you eat it?

I hate the word lunch. It is on par with moist!

Growing up in Glasgow we had breakfast, lunch and dinner, the tea and biscuits (which was just called tea and biscuits) at 9pm sharp. That was my job - I had to slip out of the living room and serve it on the dot of 9.

I was once at my friends house after 9pm and reported back to my mother that they had coffee and cheese on toast and she made a right cat's bum mouth about that.

It may well have become regional now in England, but both my grandmothers who were born in the early 1900s from London called it tea, only the upper-classes referred to dinner as luncheon.
I suspect the burgeoning middle-classes started aping their 'betters' and adopted their language and that has now passed down the generation.
I still know many older people in London and the SE who eat breakfast, dinner and tea.

People not knowing the difference between ‘your’ and ‘you’re’ could annoy me but I just let it go. It’s easier.

[quote MaskingForIt]**@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![/quote]
We eat our dinner at 7.30 so supper is not normally required though occasionally our skinny growing teens will want a snack before bed which we would call supper!

I would never use 'tea' - to me that is a cup of tea or rarely, afternoon tea.

It's dinner here.

I've never really understood what supper is...

Tea is just a cup of tea. It's dinner in our house.dont know anyone who would call evening meal 'tea'

@NinaMimi

People not knowing the difference between ‘your’ and ‘you’re’ could annoy me but I just let it go. It’s easier.

Touché 🤣

@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?!

I call it dinner. Tea is a drink, I don't eat it.

You're absolutely right, OP. It is breakfast, dinner & tea, not breakfast, lunch & dinner.
I'm from north east England and I used to think that the words lunch & dinner were words used by posh people!

@smaragda

Why is a Sunday lunch called a roast dinner?

This!

And Christmas dinner!

Lol. I didn’t expect thread to get to 19 pages! I genuinely don’t hear people calling it dinner. It’s always tea.

Oh ffs. Have you never left Wales OP? Is your only other point of reference Coronation Street? . If you go to a restaurant do you ask to book a table for "tea"?!

I call it both because I’m from Yorkshire but my husband is a Southerner so we’re now a weird mix. I think lunch/dinner is the correct version though!