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?

I hate the word supper, which is really quite irrational i suppose 😂 I call the middle of the day meal dinner but I have no issue with others calling it lunch and sometimes call it lunch myself depending on who I am with. But for some reason supper really gets to me. It’s a regional thing definitely.

It's always breakfast, lunch, supper for me.

I find ‘Tea’ sounds uneducated but each to their own. Tea is a drink.

That’s sad, do you think you’ll ever be upgraded? 😂

Its only supper if you're extremely rich and had dinner at lunch

Another who doesn't like the word 'supper', but let her crack on.

She’s fitting in with the local nomenclature, which seems entirely reasonable. When in Rome etc

Don't be a big meanie.

I grew up in the north having dinner in the middle of the day, tea in the early evening and supper before bedtime. I lived in SE for for decades. I have lunch and dinner these days ("tea" is what young children have between 5 and 6pm). I can't go back to dinner and tea, despite being in the north again. For no reason at all, I hate "supper" as a term for the evening meal! Makes me cringe. I'm totally unreasonable and can offer no justification whatsoever! 😂

I loathe it when people call dinner or tea "supper". Like nails down blackboard.

And when/where would luncheon come into all this? Is that another tax bracket away?

Supper is a word used by my pretentious in laws and gives me a visceral reaction. I’d relentlessly take the piss.

breakfast, lunch, dinner is correct,

Brunch normally weekend to replace breakfast and lunch.
Afternoon tea approx 3pm
supper is small meal/snack before 8-9pm ish

What does she call real supper then / the wee snack before bed?????

YABU. Especially to say supper is a piece of toast.. a piece of toast is just "a piece of toast." Not supper..

Just let your sister call it what she likes. (And she for you)

Btw I have lunch and dinner and never have supper...

Jeffrey Archer had kitchen suppers didn’t he. Shepherd’s pie and Krug.

I grew up in London and I say breakfast, lunch, supper.

Breakfast lunch and dinner or tea.

Is this a Surrey thing?! I’m in London but obvs not posh enough to have heard of “supper” being a thing. To be honest if someone did say it around me I’d probably laugh.

I like the word supper. My grandad would make us homemade chips and a fried egg and that was supper!

More recently my mum has started saying she's having friends round for supper which on my head means : not quite a 3 course dinner party but more a smaller dinner plate and pudding.

The opposite, actually!

Not all terms I use, personally, but:
Breakfast is breakfast.
Brunch is a late breakfast, early lunch.
Lunch is lunch (but is often called dinner up north - hence dinner ladies at school)
Dinner in the south is Tea up north.

Posh southerners distinguish between a casual dinner (say shepherds pie or something) and a more formal dinner (where you’ve invited people over, do three courses plus cheese board etc)
The casual meal is supper.
The more formal version is dinner.

Really?! I’m also London and never heard that. Are you middle-class? If so that’ll explain why I haven’t 🤣

Northerner here.
Breakfast
Dinner
Tea.
Supper is a snack before bed.
I do occasionally ask DH what he would like for "luncheon" 🤣🤣

This is helpful, thanks! I was very confused 🤣

Nothing to do with moving to Surrey... more like she's moved into being middle class!

It'll be kitchen suppers next.

True story. I now want a fish supper.

Breakfast, lunch and supper here too. Sometimes we say going out for dinner, meaning evening meal. At my GP we may have had high tea but we would never have called our evening meal tea. So many regional differences!!!

I’m in Surrey and we have supper (and it’s not a late night slice of toast). However, I think it’s normal for people to adapt and change to their surroundings whether that’s the terminology they use or another way.

Presumably you wouldn’t mock someone for having a siesta because they have moved from Scotland to Spain, even though that is also just adapting to the new place of residence.