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?

Afternoon Tea. A wonderful thing! The scones (rhymes with stones) are, of course, jam first and clotted cream on top.

as a Northerner Booths is hardly posh. Just expensive. And for many it’s their nearest large supermarket so they have little choice but to shop there and pay the stupid prices.

This is typical of this wishy-washy Government, they should have nipped it in the bud as soon as they got in, instead of wittering on about 'black holes' in the country's finances.

I don’t go out for tea and cake or have tea and cake in the afternoon generally. If we were going to a fancy hotel for that then it would be afternoon tea… or shall we go to a tea shop.

I've literally never heard anyone ever say that! Surely its 'do you want to go out for dinner one night?'

No room for either. She's living in a ghastly "executive" home.

And a class thing. As a Northerner who was brought up on dinner & tea then adopted lunch & dinner as I moved around the country and the world for work, before returning to Lancashire in recent years I can tell you you get a lot of people think of you as posh because you and your kids call it lunch and dinner and don’t have the strong local accent anymore. People, eg teachers, noticeably talk to us differently compared to our fellow “working class” parents.

Me too. To call some of my evening meals dinner gives them a dignity they don't deserve.

Very obviously not for all of the people who call their meals breakfast, dinner and tea, which I've no doubt you know given it’s in the OP of this thread.

Ha ha I love the lunch/dinner/tea argument 😂

I am a dinner/tea person. However, where I work is very multicultural and majority learn English calling it lunch and dinner. I had to change what I call dinner as I would get such confused looks!

I,m from durham, dinner is noon, teatime at 4pm and toast at suppertime,bedtime… obviously your sis feels the need to conform, now we have southerners illfiltrating the north east everyone saying lunch which i can,t bear, so stay true to yourself, tell your sis she,s being pretentious and to be herself

A 'u' in room?🤔Rouom? Ruoom? Rooum?

One has always called it lunch the meal 12-2

my friend calls evening meal supper. I call it tea

from Kent

hope that helps

DD is house sharing at uni with some girls from up north. She has started calling dinner 'tea'.

Not the done thing in Herts.

"Illfiltrating" is an excellent neologism.

Im from Sussex so Sussex folk may call evening meals dinner then!?

You see to me lunch has always been at 1/2pm.. Kids had ‘friends for tea’ which is a meal for children between 5-6:30pm . Adults have dinner 7-8:30 pm (because I lose interest in eating after that ) .
Traditionally around here (East Sussex) Supper meant a fairly light snack like toast or soup after a late night out - but these days it’s morphed into useful code for the type of invite that’s being extended .
‘come over for supper’ means a simple midweek meal , very casual , jeans and a sweater dress code and fuck off at ten because we’re working in the morning.

‘Come over for dinner’ is much more formal. Get out of your jeans, brush your hair and expect a long night with at least one other couple and probably lots of booze.

I don’t know. I’m not from Sussex.

Is she a bit precious about image? My best friend's mum is snobby and they call it 'supper'... I've only ever called it tea or dinner. Dinner, mainly.

I live in Surrey too... but I don't give a shit. My DH's family had breakfast, dinner and tea; normal for their part of the country.

I'm actually like @LozzaCh0ps as I hate the word. It seems to drop, syrup-like, from the lips, and in doing so comes over as super smarmy.

I know no adults who eat evening meal at that time.

Leaves no time for clearing up and relaxing. Meal eaten and cleared by 6:30pm.

Growing up in the sixties and seventies we had dinner midday. Tea at teatime around 6pm and sometimes supper before bed. If there were visitors we had sandwiches and later on pate on toast. As kids we would have cornflakes or sometimes my mum would make a rice pudding especially if dad was coming in late from work.

I still ask dh what he wants for his tea but also talk about going out for lunch.
Basically we use all the terms interchangeably. We go out for Sunday lunch and have a roast dinner!!!
Does anyone remember when you could have what they called high tea in hotels served with tea and bread and butter.

I don’t know why as I don’t really have a logical reason but the term supper sends me into an absolute rage. I hate the term.

Afternoon tea.

If i was cooking for them late (9pmish) id call it supper, too late for tea or dinner time

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

A spoon