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?

Thanks for replying. Good to know. Granted I am in SE but presumably Mumsnet users are from all over the UK and as much as I remember from random threads, a midday meal mentioned in posts would always be called lunch. Including a lunch break at work, never a dinner break.
When a poster ever referred to dinner it was clear from the context that it would be in the evening.
And in school dinners.
Interesting how language works.

In my house the midday meal is lunch, evening meal is dinner. Supper is a later indulgence if you're feeling piggish.

My Grandmother and Mother would have lunch around 1pm,tea at 4 pm, and dinner at 8 pm. Isn’t Supper an American term?

Thank you! I remember seeing some footballers talking about tea and saying there were specific foods for it, I was so confused!

I've started feeding my baby at 5pm so looks like this will soon be my schedule 🤗

Now that is very true.
Fish supper, Sausage supper etc.

Scottish Hospitals for some reason have Breakfast, Dinner and Supper.

Schools also have Dinner time, and School Dinners.

So if you call a mid day meal Dinner what are you meant to call a evening meal Dinner 2, Supper, Tea?

In honour of Hyacinth, hats should also be worn!

I read that in the voice of the Maggie Smith character from Downtown Abbey.

That’s always my understand / usage and I’m early 50s and from Yorkshire originally and not a particularly posh southerner now Supper is a casual evening meal, usually eaten at home or someone’s home. I have always found the use of ‘tea’ to describe an evening meal as somewhat odd and twee. Tea is eaten before 4:30/5:00 and is cold - read/sandwiches biscuits / cake.

In my working class area of Wales (which is basically most of Wales really), lunch is always lunch, and people use different terms for an evening meal. We called is supper, but equally you could dinner and it wouldn't raise eyebrows. 'Tea' is rarer, but again, nothing that would raise eyebrows that much.

In Scotland, calling your dinner ‘supper’ would be wanky beyond belief. Even here in the capital, where pretentiousness is better tolerated than in the rest of the country.
In Scotland, supper is a piece of toast and maybe a hot chocolate before bed.
No true Scot could ever claim otherwise.

I concur.

Anyone who says otherwise is a Fake Scot, which is even worse than being English.

You need to go no contact

Unless it’s from the chippy - then it’s a supper no matter the time of day

Breakfast, lunch, dinner, tea is in a cup.
supper is a word I never use…Sussex born and bred.

yes, I really dislike inverted snobbery as much as I dislike snobbery,

i recall taking my father and his partner out for dinner, we were in Surrey, co incidentally, and his partner commented on one of the female diners as she walked past and went to the loo, about how she couldn’t stand women like her, and made some completely unprovoked verbal attacks loudly, about her clothes, accent , bag etc about how she was totally up herself and braying like a horse,

I was honestly appalled , the women had done nothing wrong, she was simply quietly having dinner with her partner, and so I told her straight it was inverted snobbery and unacceptable, she just stared at me,

for some reason people think it’s ok to have a go upwards , but if the same woman had looked at his girlfriend and said loudly she looked low class/chavvy or whatever the opposite is, I’ve no clue, she’d have been furious.

i see the same mindset to slim women, thinking it’s ok to have a go , calling them teeny tinies and putting them down, but if someone talked about the fatties , there would be outrage.

Yes, "tea" in this house means a cup of tea, which can be taken at any time of day.

Although if feeling old-fashioned, one might invite guests for "morning tea" or "afternoon tea", in which case one would also offer a little something to eat, biscuits and/or sliced cake etc. But this would not be considered a "meal" and would be between the day's proper meals.

Is it a candelight supper? Love a bit of Hyacinth - fab actress!

Tea is a drink, with maybe a slice of cake. Lunch is the midday meal. Supper is the evening meal eaten at home. If one goes out for one's evening meal, it's called dinner.

Same. Makes me teeth itch.

Hell, yes!

I suspect you know this but…

Supper is a late evening meal, doesn’t have to be solitary cornflakes before bed.

Dinner is the largest meal of the day, irrespective of the time of day 😏

So you could theoretically have dinner as breakfast which I sometimes do - especially if it’s a big hotel breakfast . If DS has lunch and dinner one day that is fine, other days she could have dinner and tea. Someone else might have breakfast, lunch, tea and then a dinner also before supper😁

Oh you can also have breakfast just before you go to bed and it could be called supper… because breakfast is simply the first meal of the day (breaking the fast) and if you haven’t eaten anything until supper time your supper will be your breakfast… 😎

In NZ it’s frequently called a couch. In the 80s we had a 3 piece lounge suite. In the front room. I currently have sofas in my living room, eat breakfast, lunch, dinner. Sometimes have cheese and biscuits if peckish before bed but called cheese and biscuits. Or possibly a snack.

Not ‘a’ dinner, just dinner.

Why would those of us who call the midday meal dinner ever say lunch?

it isn't about putting people in their place. It is putting people at ease, a casual meal with friends, not a formal one. Most of the 'posh' people I know are the kindest, most welcoming people who don't want anyone feeling uncomfortable.

And tea is a liquid that Brits are supposed to be experts at (how shocked I was to find that British tea bags don't even have strings, once I moved to the UK).

Wait, what? Is this true? Why don’t your teabags have strings? How do you get them out of your cup?

Sofa, couch etc is a lounge in Australia. Fancy people might call it a sofa. Student share houses should always have a brown couch.