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?

Anyone mentioned the Sarah Millican sketch about going on holiday with her sister and the list of meals in the day? If you haven't seen it, Google it. It's great! And reminds me so much of my sister and me. 😋
BTW, we have breakfast, lunch and tea. The kids demand supper before bed as a stalling tactic. It's usually weetabix or porridge.

Just remind her that Hyacinth Bucket would approve and ask whether she’s invited Sheridan to her candlelight suppers.

The answers to your questions are "yes". All of the above

We called dinner tea. My parents are Londoners, I grew up in the London suburbs and now live in the Midlands. We are middle-aged middle-class professionals. I will still say "what shall we have for tea?", I think, to mean "evening meal, probably eaten around 7.30-8."

I think lunch is always more high status than dinner, for midday meal. Don't forget that it's not always class v region in the UK. "Merely Yorkshire" isn't really a concept in British class dynamics because the dominant cultural drivers (media, press, government etc) are based in London and many blinkered Londoners see The North as fundamentally working class.

Should also have said, tea is what youn have in the afternoon - a cup of tea with a biscuit or piece of cake, as in "Come to tea on Sunday - meaning 3-4pm approximately.
In my first job which was in a park, we started at 8am. At 9am the men I worked with had "lunch", then in middle of the day they had "dinner" (their sandwiches) before going home to tea, presumably the biggest meal of the day.

Yes, sometimes you have to code switch to fit in. I’ve done it myself. Many years ago when went a couple of rungs up the social ladder (🙄) one of the first things I dropped was putting ‘our’ and ‘your’ in front of relatives’ names: Our Kevin is coming at Christmas/ How’s your Maureen?
As you say, it’s not a crime.

I’d drag my sister back to her northern working class roots - who does she think she is living amongst southerners and calling tea supper!!

Me too although I grew up Northern. It’s not the middle class Southern vibe of it, it’s the actual sound of the word. In my opinion it’s tea before about 6.30pm and dinner after that.

Dinner is always evening meal here in North Yorkshire. Lunch is lunch. Are people really calling lunch ‘dinner?!’

My husband is from Cornwall. Lots of people called lunch dinner.

Jilly Cooper's characters and David and Samantha Cameron used to have 'kitchen suppers' with friends. I do associate 'supper' with posh people.

I agree with your sentiment, however by the same reasoning, she should adapt her language when speaking to her sister and go back to calling it tea/dinner as they both grew up with and she knows her sister still does.

Most people switch their language depending on their audience, so it should work both ways.

I’m a Yorkshire girl so it’s breakfast, dinner & tea all the way. Supper would be a snack before bed such as toast, crackers.

YANBU. Very pretentious imo to change the words you use for things just to fit in with a particular social group.

The other factor to take into account in all this is time.

Different generations of class and geography use different terms.

I grew up in the West Country. Dinner was on the table at midday and tea was the evening meal, usually around 6pm. We didn't have supper but if you did it would be some sort of snack before bedtime.

No, it's more Wiltshire I believe.

I'm not too familiar with that area but I know she's not too far from Camilla's house.

I know the properties are pretty much all £800k upwards. Very pretty but I wouldn't fit in. I'm far too common which won't surprise you.🤣

I'd consider going low contact for that. I'm horrified every time my sister refers to going places, doing things and taking a photo as "making memories". If she started saying supper I don't know how I'd react.

I have always had lunch and supper; a main meal eaten between 7 and 8.

Supper as a late evening snack is an anathema to me. The idea of having anything to eat after a large meal at 8pm sounds crazy, but I guess if you have 'tea' at 5 or 6pm, which I think is the time for an evening meal in the North, you might feel peckish after 9pm. Perhaps the difference is in when we eat? Tea eaters eat much earlier than Supper eaters, who do not get back from work until 7ish.

Dinner is just too ambiguous to describe a meal time, but I use it to describe having a meal.

I never use the word supper, it sounds so pretentious and old fashioned. I just have breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Come on - you're in N YORKSHIRE and you're entirely unaware that in most parts of God's own county, the midday meal is called 'dinner'?

I don't believe you don't know that!

Supper is supper nothing to do with toast.

The whole concept of a kitchen supper demands a house big enough to have a dining table and chairs in the kitchen.
You can't fit a table and chairs in most normal house kitchens.
So posh enough to afford that.

BUT why would you want to sit and eat looking at all the dirty pots and pans you've just used to cook the meal?

.

Yes Dinner is at dinner time around 12.00 to 1.00. That's why schools have Dinner ladies not Lunch ladies ... supper is a later night snack. Tea is at Teatime.

The dinner ladies are called " midday ladies" where I work.