My sister has started calling her evening meal supper ...

[TheFateofOphelia]

She was talking about having friends round for "supper" on Friday. I was puzzled as she knows, and I know, that supper is a piece of toast if you're feeling peckish at bedtime.

Apparently, now she's moved to Surrey she no longer has her dinner between 12 and 1, she has lunch. Now I'm ok with that but AIBU to draw the line at her having supper at tea time?

Your son's friend was a cheeky little shit.

I think if she’s changed what she’s calling her evening meal to fit in it either might be delusions of grandeur or possibly an insecurity of fitting in with her peers.
personally, being someone who lives in the midlands and has northern parents I think it sounds pretentious and stupid. 🤣🤣 (I’m being light hearted here)
supper is a bit of toast before bed not an evening meal lol!

You have no option but to go NC.

And obviously don’t allow your DC anywhere near her. 😱

I don't know anyone who says 'afters' but I've heard of it.

We always say pudding - I can only think of 'dessert' as an alternative, and I haven't heard anyone say that in years!

The midday meal is lunch
Children have tea between 5 and 6
Adults have dinner between 7 and 8
Supper is a no man's land when someone gets home late and has something heated up and put on a tray.

The only thing that I find odd is calling the midday meal dinner. MIL once asked when my parents had their dinner and I just looked askance and said, early, now they're retired, at about 6. She looked askance back. Paradoxically she's quite snobby.

Ah, the great dinner-supper divide!

I think supper to mean your main evening meal is insufferably pretentious. Supper is very clearly a snack shortly before bedtime.

But in the other direction, don't get me started on people who call the main evening meal tea. Tea is sandwiches and cake.

How anyone can call a proper hot dinner supper or tea, such as beef stew, veg, and potatoes, is beyond me.

Breakfast
Lunch
Dinner

Or at weekends you might have high tea instead of dinner.

Anything else is a travesty! 😂

Is it candle lit? Is her name Hyacinth by chance? (r.i.p. the great Patricia Routledge)

Only if Sheridan is invited

Born and raised in Surrey and have never used the word supper in my life

If it were a stranger using southern terms I doubt the OP would think anything of it. But it's her sister - they have been brought up giving meals certain names all their lives, they are speaking together and now the sister suddenly changes the words she uses. That's the issue

Disinherit her as well.

Does it matter?

In my house (Brum) the evening meal is either called dinner or tea, tea being a lighter meal like soup or a jacket spud. If it's a bigger meal like a roast or something then it's dinner.
Midday meal is always referred to as lunch whether it's light or substantial.

🤣🤣

I think technically the main meal of the day is dinner regardless of when it is consumed. So the midday meal is lunch if you have dinner in the evening, and the evening meal is supper if you have the main meal at midday.

Your sister is correct OP. Breakfast, lunch , supper is the norm .

You have breakfast , lunch and dinner, if the evening meal involves , in any combination, guests, a table cloth, candles, decent wine and nice cheese after or instead of pudding.

Yes, pudding, not dessert.

For me (Irish) it’s usually breakfast, lunch and dinner. In my family the main meal is usually in the evening as we’re out during the day. For my grandparents, who were farmers, dinner was in the middle of the day so it depends on lifestyle really.

On any occasion when our main meal happens to be in the middle of the day, eg Sundays, Christmas etc, the lighter meal in the evening, at around 7pm maybe, is called supper. My mother and grandparents always referred to the lighter evening meal as such too so it’s not a recent thing. I know others who call this meal tea.

I did know that UC British people often refer to their main meal in the evening as supper, but I’d never heard of a late snack before bed being called supper, so I’ve learnt something new from this thread 😊

Oh yes, I can just imagine them sitting in a brothel in 7 dials eating supper by candle light 😂

I like a PP’s use of “Cheerio” too, but think this is what the working classes/cockneys would say in the 1950s ( as opposed to being “posh”)

Invite her over for elevensies and you can talk it over.

I’m a reasonable woman, I like to think of myself as tolerant, but there are lines… Grown adults that have never called their evening meal ‘supper’, starting to call their evening meal ‘supper’, need to have the piss ripped mercilessly from them until they change their pretentious ways.

If it’s always been supper to you, fine. If it’s an affectation - no mercy.

Anyway, everyone knows it’s breakfast, dinner and tea.

Supper is an evening meal - tea is a piece of toast. Something tells me OP is a bit of a povvo. 😂

Yeah it’s a bit pretentious if you’ve just started doing it in adulthood to fit in with a posher crowd rather than having grown up using those words.

I have a friend who has recently started referring to the evening meal as "Supper".

She originates from North Yorkshire where it was always breakfast, lunch and dinner - supper a snack before bed - and still is.

However, said friend - who now lives in a rather posh Herefordshire/Wiltshire border village - is very much a "Keep up with the Jones" type so it does sound very pretentious and unnatural. It is so obviously used to sound "Upmarket" 🙄

(It's just one of many words/phrases she has suddenly starting using.)

I find it quite sad that she can't just be herself and feels she has to change the way she speaks to fit in with her snooty neighbours, who definitely aren't her friends, and have taken the Mick a few times. (I know, I'm a horrible person. 😊)

North West. We say Breakfast/lunch/Dinner. I don't think I've ever said Supper but would imagine it to be either toast before bedtime or glamourous Nigella style fairylit kitchen meal depending on the person.