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?!

It’s always dinner. Never call a meal tea- unbearably common.
Tea is a drink or a hot drink with small sandwiches and fancy cakes.
It’s not dinner ladies. It’s lunchtime supervisors

I don't know anyone who calls it tea.

I grew up in Surrey/London and we have breakfast, lunch and dinner. Never used any other words for these meals when I was younger.

Now married to a man from the NE and his family use breakfast, dinner, tea (except for his sister who sometimes says lunch, but it’s always tea).

We’ve been together yonks but I still find called lunch ‘dinner’ confusing. DH finds it just as confusing that I call tea ‘dinner’

We muddle through 😂

Isn't 'dinner's which ever one is hot food? The other us lunch or tea depending on the time of day.

I remember hot school dinners and cold packed lunch. I grew up in Northamptonshire in the 90s... now I live in the North with an ex Wiganer where all meals are pies

Tea is a drink. Dinner is a meal.
I don't understand why northeners always call it "tea"

Also we never had dinner ladies - we had lunch ladies who served lunch in the lunch room.

I'm not so convinced that it's regional.

I have always lived in the north of England, as have all my family.

I grew up with breakfast, lunch, and dinner/supper (the latter were pretty much interchangeable - though inviting someone for supper generally meant 'kitchen supper', whereas dinner meant several courses in the dining room).

"Tea" is what you drink at 4 o'clock. If someone invited me to tea, I'd expect a cup of tea and a selection of cakes (possibly sandwiches), so I'd not have any lunch, and wouldn't expect to be needing any supper either.

School lunches were always school lunches at my school.

My DC have grown up with the same.

I say breakfast lunch and sometimes tea sometimes dinner, I'm very confusing after moving from one end of the country to the other! If I talk to people about going out for dinner I now clarify if it means evening meal or lunch, and I always feel it's so weird when people say they are going out for their tea.

@ringydinghy

Tea is a drink. Dinner is a meal. I don't understand why northeners always call it "tea"

We don't!

Where have you ever been to stay where it’s described as ‘Tea, Bed & Breakfast’?
It’s dinner. I agree with the PPs - breakfast, lunch, tea, dinner, supper. I’m Yorkshire born and bred, with parents the same. It’s always been lunch and dinner. DH the same and he’s always said dinner. Very, very, few people where I live call the evening meal Tea/ midday meal Dinner. The pronunciation of ‘scone’ though is another matter.......

It does get confusing when inviting people over.

If we invite you to our house for lunch on a weekday you would get a sandwich or soup or quiche and salad.

If we invite you for lunch on a Saturday you are more likely to be served a proper cooked meal but we would specify to make sure there are no misunderstandings. If we had no guests coming for lunch we would stick to the usual sandwich lunch and have dinner in the evening.

If you are invited for Sunday lunch you will get a roast with all the trimmings.

If we invite you over for tea it will be a "high tea" - so sandwiches , hot sausage rolls , cake and scones. This could happen on a Saturday but more likely to be on a Sunday and never on a weekday.

How anyone is supposed to understand it all is beyond me though!

Dinner is, by definition, the main meal of the day. We have dinner in the evening, a lighter meal at lunch time. I only know one person that says dinner for the mid day meal, but oddly if she is talking about a sunday, she calls it lunch. What's that all about?

Dinner, although I have heard it called supper, which I think is to distinguish between a late dinner and an early dinner. As in you might have your Sunday dinner quite early, round about lunchtime or just after. But dinner is your main meal of the day.

Dinner would be a little more formal than tea. We must have been quite formal in my family growing up, because "having dinner" meant sitting down at the dining table to have it as a family every night.

'When do you eat lunch?'

Never. It's dinner and tea where I'm from (northern). It isn't a class thing either as I'm properly posh . It's regional. I have moved south and where I live now everyone has lunch and dinner, which confuses the dcs.

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.

My evening meal is called supper and can happen at any time between 5:30 and 10pm depending on what I am doing that evening. Tea is in the middle of the afternoon and involves drinking tea, the midday meal is lunch, and the first meal of the day is breakfast.

I chose to cll them thus deliberately on the basis that nobody is ever going to have to work out which of two meals I happen to mean if I invite them to dinner, because I will never be inviting anyone to dinner. Using dinner at all can only confuse, since people are so hell-bent and determined it is either the last meal of the day or the meal at the middle of the day or the main meal of the day regardless of what time it happens at, and I have no way of telling which they think it is just by looking at them.

@CeibaTree

Tea is a drink or a light meal around 5pm on a sunday. Lunch is at lunchtime and the evening meal is either dinner or supper depending on what time. I don't know anyone who calls the evening meal tea.

Me too, except that an early evening/late afternoon meal for quite young children can be tea if it is an invite home after school ! ( Before such things were called ‘play dates’ )

It's breakfast, lunch, dinner

When I was at primary school in the 80s I used to take this with me.

It's called a lunch box

Am from Glasgow we call it dinner here I have friends in Dundee that call it tea they think it's weird I call it dinner i think it's weird they call it tea

If you go on a date op, do you go to a restaurant for your tea?

As others said it’s regional. I have breakfast lunch and dinner. Tea is something I drink, or an after noon tea, not that I’d ever have one is tea and scones etc,

@Vulpius

I'm not so convinced that it's regional.

I have always lived in the north of England, as have all my family.

I grew up with breakfast, lunch, and dinner/supper (the latter were pretty much interchangeable - though inviting someone for supper generally meant 'kitchen supper', whereas dinner meant several courses in the dining room).

"Tea" is what you drink at 4 o'clock. If someone invited me to tea, I'd expect a cup of tea and a selection of cakes (possibly sandwiches), so I'd not have any lunch, and wouldn't expect to be needing any supper either.

School lunches were always school lunches at my school.

My DC have grown up with the same.

Afternoon tea is at 3-4

Tea (from high tea) is 5-6.30. Hot dingle course meal- eaten in the kitchen.

Dinner is 7-8 but only if eaten at a table, hot and multiple courses

Supper can go from 7 onwards- less formal that dinner but hot.

Breakfast, lunch and dinner unless you missed lunch and eat a 2 course meal at 4 o'clock, then it is high tea.

I’m from Scotland and lunch is afternoon and then dinner about 5/ 6ish

Parky04
Kids take a pack lunch to school, not a pack dinner!!
Actually they take packed lunches

Or a pack up.

Dinner in Ireland, obviously depends on where you live?