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?

"Shocking behaviour. Next she'll be looking to move to somewhere with room for a pony."

😂😂😂

I'm in Surrey.

It's breakfast, lunch and dinner.

To me supper is just a little meal that generally old people might have if they don't have enough appetite for a proper dinner at dinner time.

I do also wear a gillet, eat sushi and drive an SUV, so I am obviously proper Surrey.

Working class Bristolian here and it’s Breakfast, lunch and tea for me, supper is a snack late evening.

Neither do I know anyone who does this, not even my grannies. Who has a meal of tea and cake at 3.30 ? I’d be enormous if I did that, and most of us are working.

Supper is a biscuit or cracker at bedtime. The only people I know who call dinner supper are pretentious twats. (That doesn't include you lot as I don't actually know you...)

North East England here & we call it Breakfast, Dinner, Tea & Supper. If eating out might say going out for Dinner for an evening meal but usually just say 'we're going out for food'.

I'd say just call it a meal, but MN has a BIG problem with that!

I grew up in a modern house where you walked from the porch straight into the main room which had both sitting and dining areas. This was the living room. I regarded friends who lived in inter-war semis as having sitting rooms, because the room with this one function was separate and led off a hallway. (Lounge? Don't get me started...)

My sister also switched from tea to supper. It coincided with her children going to posh boarding schools. My husband and I laugh about it. She sounds like a posh twat who has forgotten her roots.

I don’t think it’s even the post thing to call it - I thought the poshest was to call the evening meal dinner, and then use the word supper for a late night snack of any kind?

Hahahahaha! OMG you need to educate her fully on the meals of the day ha.

As a good old northerner it's Breakfast, dinner & tea and supper is toast before bed there is no deviation from this 😂

Where I am in the US, some people do say supper. I’m in the South, but in a very wealthy city. Code switching does become necessary. When I go home to the UK to visit family I’m really conscious of not using my Americanisms because they’re a bunch of bastards to me about it! I still drop the occasional Britishism in the US, but they think it’s “adorable” 😑

I grew up with breakfast, lunch and dinner, but some people in my hometown said breakfast, dinner and tea when I was a kid. It seemed to be across blue/white collar job lines at the time (80s/90s).

I take it that you’re northern. Northerners calling lunch ‘dinner’ confuses the hell out of me. She’s probably just trying to make herself understood in Surrey!

Oops made a mistake, meant to put noticed people calling mid day meal lunch. Which usually was just a sandwich

I had to google why some people refer to dinner for lunch and supper for dinner when I first heard someone say it years ago...

Google says - historically, it has to do with socioeconomic status so upper classes often ate a main meal (dinner) in the evening, while working-class families eat a fuller meal i.e., "dinner" at lunch and then a smaller meal at dinner which is called "supper".

Supper to me is an additional intake of food and only allowed for skinny people!

Worzel Gummidge and Aunt Sally used to have "a cup of tea and a slice o' cake". My partner and I say this to each other when we go to the garden centre although he spoils it by having a flat white.

I live in an area where tea is more commonly used for the evening meal, and I don’t like it. For me it’s breakfast, lunch, dinner. Supper is a little snack before bed.

I always think of jilly Cooper and 'kitchen-sups' when I hear the word 'supper'...

RIP Jilly Cooper.

Supper generalky a snack before bed ,but i live in Surrey and when we refer to supper it means a more casual meal than dinner. EG. Inviting someone for dinner would be a bit more elaborate. Maybe 3 course in the dining room. Supper could be very casual. Maybe a bowl of pasra in the kitchen.
But different people and different areas have different meanings.
I believe in Victorian times Supper was a very late dinner after the theatre maybe. Or even a second smaller meal after an earlier dinner.
In the North people often refer to evening meal as tea. Each to their own. Doesnt matter. As long as meal is tasty!

It's not just a regional thing but also class and age. I am over 60 and have lived in S London (near Surrey!) all my life. As a child I had breakfast, dinner and tea. Now its definitely breakfast, lunch and dinner. Im trying to remember when that changed - 70s?

😂

Walked past a healthy cafe this morning selling "Supps", as in "protein supplements".