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?!

ITs not a class thing just regional. I come from a working class background and it’s lunch and dinner. Supper = posh people, always confused me that it’s supper in kids books. I have only known one person in real life to say supper.

It’s a bit like Granny and grandpa vs nanny and granddad just regional differences.

I reckon north of Birmingham it’s tea.

Only if you are northern. In the south finner or supper never before 6pm generally 7pm

Dinner

@HeelsHandbagPerfumeCoffee

Never heard anyone in Scotland say high tea

My grandparents are from Aberdeen and they always had High Tea; a hot savoury ( as my grandma called it ) something like Ham and egg, smoked haddock and egg, sausages, scotch pie, followed by cake and tea. They had lunch at 12.00 sharp ( woe betide you if you were late) and high tea at 5 . Supper about 9pm was cheese and biscuits or toast.

hot School Dinner -or packed lunch.

Afternoon tea- posh, High Tea - farmers

Sunday Lunch = roast dinner

Dinner Party- Chippie tea

The British language is so riddled with regional and class influences that it's impossible to tackle it logically

Children have tea, at about 5pm.
Adults have dinner (or if they are very posh and it's an informal meal, supper), at 7 or 8pm.

DH's rather plummy parents will often refer to any informal/light meal regardless of time of day, as a "snack".

Sorry the meal in the middle of the day is lunch

@Peaseblossom22 sounds like a delightful purvey. Just never encountered it as a phrase
Afternoon tea, yes
High tea,no however sounds smashing

It’s a regional thing and also a class thing. My dad is working class he says dinner/tea. I’m now middle class I guess and I say lunch / dinner

I consider myself from a middle class family and an affluent area (Cambridge) and everybody I know calls their everyday evening meal tea. If we go out to eat In the evening then we go out to dinner.

@HeelsHandbagPerfumeCoffee so many holidays in my teens were spent with my mother and aunt trying to find somewhere that would go a High Tea at five for them . My grandfather was not at all convinced that sandwiches and cake was a proper meal and my grandmother would not eat a cooked meal after six as it gave her ‘acid’

Tea/dinner = same thing
Lunch is midday.
Simple

Breakfast
Morning coffee
Gin o'clock anytime onwards
Lunch
Afternoon tea
High tea
Sups

Maybe dinner is for a main meal, when they would be 4-8 hours long - so both early afternoon and evening. Possibly came over with the Normans.

But Tea for evening cooked meal is a shortened “High Tea” for a cooked early evening meal.

Supper is a late (often v late) light cooked meal.

I must initiate a high tea, I appear to have missed out @Peaseblossom22

Tea a drink with jam and bread.

High tea is hearty and Famous Five-ish.

We call it both. Growing up it was ways tea but now I have my own family we call it either depending on our mood I guess lol but tbh it’s generally tea

My understanding was it wasn’t a question of when the meal is eaten but what it is. A hot cooked main meal would always be my dinner. Lunch is a sandwich etc, probably midday for people at work. For me teatime is a light, sweet snack or cake early in the afternoon.

YABVVVVU. You do realise the UK is a massive place with lots of cultural differences?
Your post is ridiculous and insulting

Northern OP methinks. Dinner ladies bt its always been school lunch everywhere!

Breakfast, lunch (or brunch instead of breakfast and lunch), the main meal is then dinner. It’s never “tea”.
Afternoon tea is always mid-afternoon and a completely separate thing!
Supper is if we’re eating late in the evening.
I live in York. “Up North” so to speak it’s not always regional.

I'm in South England, we all call it dinner. My brother is from North England, he calls it tea. Its funny when he calls lunch dinner when speaking to my kids as it confuses them. But YABU for bringing this argument up again