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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To think this was done on purpose

160 replies

Strawberryandlime9 · 22/07/2023 00:29

Not taken it to heart too much but thought I would post for opinions.

I collected my DD from pre school just after 1pm and asked her ‘did you have anything nice for dinner’. The mum next to me (who was quite posh) said to her DC straight after ‘what did you have for lunch today darling’ and then looked at us. Aibu to think she was thinking that I am common.

OP posts:
RosesAndHellebores · 22/07/2023 09:43

Interesting @GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER I simply have no recollections of the midday meal arrangements at the dc's London day schools. I think it was called lunch and I don't recall dinner ladies. I don't care.

At my grandparents' (farmers) (home counties)
Monday to Friday: breakfast, dinner, tea, supper (dinner was always hot and at 12.15 and served to all the farm workers in the kitchen 6-10 including grandma and grandad). G&G had tea at about 5 which was usually soup, bread, cold meat, cheese, pickles; supper at 9ish (something on toast and a hot milky drink). Always in bed by 9.30ish. It was hard physical work. My mother got reheated dinner for tea because she had to have a proper meal. Grannie had no truck with school dinners even then and insisted on a proper hot meal.

Sat: Lunch which was cold meat, soup, etc, and dinner in the evening.

Sun: Sunday lunch, roast, trolley at 6.30ish with sandwiches, cake, etc.

It varies. I call the midday meal lunch but we always have our main, hot meal in the evenings, after 7 and call it dinner.

In an ideal world, when we are retired, I think I would like elevenses at 10.30ish and a main meal at 6ish.

midgetastic · 22/07/2023 09:44

School dinner as it was hot
Packed lunch as it was cold

PopsicleHustler · 22/07/2023 09:49

Its funny because they call it school dinners but they ask what would you like to order for lunch.

My friend calls lunch, dinner. And I ask her what do you call dinner, the evening meal, and she said she also calls it dinner.
And I said to her I call it tea, dinner or even supper depending how late it is.
And she said her husband HATES calling it tea.
Everyone is different.

continentallentil · 22/07/2023 09:49

This is obviously a made up post to provoke a MN class debate.

Beautiful3 · 22/07/2023 09:52

She was probably trying to find out what they ate, same as you. I call it lunch as dinner is later, but I don't care what others call it.

NewName122 · 22/07/2023 09:55

Since when is calling lunch 'lunch' considered posh?

FluffyFlannery · 22/07/2023 09:56

MindPalace · 22/07/2023 05:04

Yes, I think she was publicly correcting you and being snobby. Mean woman.

Agree with you.

JusthereforXmas · 22/07/2023 09:56

Well its semantics really, what does the school serve for food:

The definition difference is:
Hot food (example: A slice of pizza and chips) is Dinner
Cold food (example: A sandwich & crisps) is Lunch.

GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER · 22/07/2023 09:57

@RosesAndHellebores , traditionally, the main meal of the day was always called dinner, no matter when you had it. But it began to be thought by many people that it was more ‘correct’ to refer to any meal in the middle of the day as ‘lunch’, so it’s become general.

On that theme I have a bit of a Thing about people referring to the typical blow-out roast on 25th December as Christmas ‘lunch’.

If that isn’t a main meal, I don’t know what is!

FluffyFlannery · 22/07/2023 09:57

Theydontknowanything · 22/07/2023 08:46

Would people be as quick to dismiss someone querying racist microaggressions? It happens with class as well. It's hard to explain and hard to describe but when it happens to you, you know what it is and why it's being done.

Absolutely.

wutheringkites · 22/07/2023 09:59

Posts like this often make me wonder how many people I come into contact with are harbouring bad feelings about imagined slights.

If Mumsnet is anything to go by, I'm guessing a lot.

honeylulu · 22/07/2023 10:01

I would say it's regional rather than class based and also depends on certain factors. I'm from South East England (Kent, now Berks) and meals have been termed as follows:

Breakfast - first meal of day, any time up to midday. After that it is brunch or early lunch. The only exception is a Wedding Breakfast which is typically a three course meal mid afternoon. (From the olden days when people married first thing in the morning, around 7-8am, then had breakfast with any guests and any to work for the rest of the day.)

Brunch - see above.

Lunch - meal eaten usually 12-2pm. Can be cold/sandwich type meal i.e. "packed lunch" or a cooked meal i.e. Sunday lunch which is typically a roast. When I was at school (1980s) it WAS called School Dinners if you had the school meal which was a cooked meal served by Dinner Ladies. But if you brought your own sandwiches that was definitely Packed Lunch.
However, my children's schools do now refer to it as School Meals or School Lunches (not dinners) and they have Lunchtime Supervisors not Dinner Ladies.
The only exception now seems to be Christmas Dinner (eaten at lunchtime or early afternoon). Have never heard it called Christmas Lunch.

Tea - certainly some usage in the South but variously.I

Tea is definitely a drink but can be clarified with the prefixes "cup of" or "pot of".

High Tea or Afternoon Tea is typically around 3-4pm. Can be a cup of tea with a slice of cake /scone but if you have Afternoon Tea at a hotel or restaurant it is more of a meal with sandwiches and cakes. High Tea we used to have on Wednesdays and Saturdays at University served at 5pm which was just after team sports finished. That was always bacon and eggs with bread and butter and a massive urn of tea. I've no idea other people have the same idea of High Tea - my Australian relatives liked going for High Tea in a hotel here but it sounded like my description if Afternoon Tea.

It is quite usual to refer to a late afternoon meal (any time before 6), particularly eaten by children and particularly if it's not a hot meal as Tea, as in "would Johnny like to come to tea?" or the " birthday tea" at a child's birthday party.

I would never refer to my evening meal - whether hot or cold - as Tea, if after 6pm.

Dinner - cooked meal eaten in the evening, any time after 6pm. Exception - Christmas Dinner. My daughter goes to an after school club where they have a cooked meal at 5pm and call that Dinner.

Supper - cold or snacky evening meal in place of dinner i.e. soup/sandwiches.

JusthereforXmas · 22/07/2023 10:02

GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER · 22/07/2023 09:57

@RosesAndHellebores , traditionally, the main meal of the day was always called dinner, no matter when you had it. But it began to be thought by many people that it was more ‘correct’ to refer to any meal in the middle of the day as ‘lunch’, so it’s become general.

On that theme I have a bit of a Thing about people referring to the typical blow-out roast on 25th December as Christmas ‘lunch’.

If that isn’t a main meal, I don’t know what is!

Not true.

High Tea (which some now call Supper) served after 5pm was traditionally the main meal and was called such as it was served at the kitchen table with the whole family and made up of heavy meats, veg and carbs.

Dinner is simply a hot meal around midday.

GillianMcQueef · 22/07/2023 10:06

Dinner is actually the historically correct term for the midday meal. In ye olden days the main meal of the day was eaten at what we call lunchtime. You would 'dine' at around 1pm whatever your class, and if you were geet posh as owt, that meal would be the whole nine yards - tens of courses, entertainment, massive sugar castles and jellies, the works.

So, 'dinner' is correct, not 'lunch', if you want to be pedantic.

I still call it lunch though. When I moved to where I live now (small town in the north) from where I lived before (London) I was called a scenty-gob and posh for doing so 😂

I see shocking inverted snobbery here. It isn't nice

This is what I see too, OP. Just own it - and know that you're actually right, technically!

Goldenbear · 22/07/2023 10:08

sashh · 22/07/2023 04:05

I think it depends where you are, if you are in Yorkshire she's a snob, if you are in Surrey she's normal.

How about if she is from surrey but living in Yorkshire?

RosesAndHellebores · 22/07/2023 10:08

@JusthereforXmas @GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER I'm not sure how much I care to be honest. I always note the use of cutlery but wouldn't comment.

midgetastic · 22/07/2023 10:09

Honelylulu missed fish supper which is eaten late but cooked hot

MichelleScarn · 22/07/2023 10:19

Newname211 · 22/07/2023 07:55

That’s funny, because I’m in Scotland, and in my part of Scotland tea is a warm drink and doesn’t include food (except maybe a biscuit!)

Same! Reminds me of the scene in a medical drama where patient is meant to be on fluids only for an op, but it gets delayed, the NA says to the doc, 'can he have tea now?' 'Yes, tea only though' NA meant the meal, doc interpreted as the hot drink as was still to have the op!

LivinDaylights · 22/07/2023 10:21

I had to read your post twice to work out what you were on about! As a northerner it is dinner, we aren't "common" that's what we call it at home and with our children. I will use lunch if I'm at work (I work remotely with lots of southerners). I think I just got used to adapting to my audience when I was at uni with southern pals, don't confuse them with dinner 😆.

I think maybe you are overthinking things here though.

FatherJackHackettsUnderpantsHamper · 22/07/2023 11:10

Interesting thread.

I love the faux innocence from people who have apparently never realised that regional variations in the same language exist. I bet none of these people would hear an American in a hotel referring to taking the 'elevator' and just stand there open-mouthed in utter bewilderment at what they could possibly mean - and yet the sheer befuddlement when their own countryfolk call the midday meal 'dinner', a bread roll a 'barm' or their mother 'mom'!

One thing I have noticed is that, by and large, dinner/tea people (of which I am one) freely accept that others call it lunch/dinner, but it never seems to work the other way: many lunch/dinner people will sneer and outright tell dinner/tea people that they are 'wrong'.

Also, when people from dinner/tea areas move to live in a lunch/dinner area, they tend to adapt to their (new) local norm, to conform and avoid ongoing confusion; but this doesn't happen the other way around when (e.g.) southerners move north.

wutheringkites · 22/07/2023 11:28

@FatherJackHackettsUnderpantsHamper

This isn't my experience. I'm from London where people mostly use 'lunch' and 'dinner' but have worked with plenty of people who would ask 'what are you having for tea?' I understood them perfectly well and answered the question. No sneering.

Now I live in the North and still use the same words I always have because that's natural to me. People shouldn't need to stop their regional language differences. If anyone thinks I use the word 'lunch' to criticise them then that's very much their problem.

RichardMarxisinnocent · 22/07/2023 11:46

Herefornames · 22/07/2023 09:35

Interesting, what region is this common place?

The ones I am aware of are large parts of Northern England and northern Wales. I can't comment on Scotland or NI but others on this thread have.

RichardMarxisinnocent · 22/07/2023 11:51

One thing I have noticed is that, by and large, dinner/tea people (of which I am one) freely accept that others call it lunch/dinner, but it never seems to work the other way: many lunch/dinner people will sneer and outright tell dinner/tea people that they are 'wrong'.

Also, when people from dinner/tea areas move to live in a lunch/dinner area, they tend to adapt to their (new) local norm, to conform and avoid ongoing confusion; but this doesn't happen the other way around when (e.g.) southerners move north.

I've also noticed both of these things, and it seems to be happening on this thread too. I'm tempted to revert to dinner/tea if there is any mention of meals at work next week, to see how much confusion I cause 😂

FatherJackHackettsUnderpantsHamper · 22/07/2023 12:14

@wutheringkites

Sorry, I could have been clearer there. No, you are completely right that a great many lunch/dinner people are indeed not sneery/condescending/arrogant in the least.

It's just that, amongst the people who are that way, it only seems to go the one way.

FatherJackHackettsUnderpantsHamper · 22/07/2023 12:14

Interesting, what region is this common place?

Also most of the (English) Midlands.

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