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?

As a Midlands girl now exiled in the south east I’ve gone all hybrid and say Breakfast Lunch and Tea. I believe it would confuse the natives here in Essex to call my midday meal dinner. They’d just look at me like an anomaly even more than they do already.

As for your sister, go NC with her. Supper is an outrage!

It doesn't really matter if it's dictionary correct or not. It's how it's used in large parts of the country, including by me (Yorkshire) and by the OP and, until very recently, her sister.

It's the fact that the sister is suddenly using the word differently, especially when talking with her sister who she shares a linguistic upbringing with, that makes it unforgivably poncey.

Dinner is the main meal of the day. Whatever time that is. Lunch and Supper are time specific and imply less substantial fare. Tea is something brown in a cup that you may have any time. Unless you live in the North and it replaces supper.

I’d say it is a regional thing not a class thing.

@blinkblinkblinkblink completely disagree, the “kitchen supper” is the de rigueur invitation in my Rutshire circles. More formal “dinner parties” are vanishingly rare these days.

My Northern family went NC with me for doing the same thing OP. On reflection they were totally justified - and it saved me having to explain them away to my posh new southern candlelit supper friends. 😉

Let’s not forget elevenses! We have breakfast, lunch and tea. My Granparents and Parents used to have supper when we were off to bed. I’m clearly still not old enough of a grown up to call my last meal supper. Well that, or the random selection grabbed having gone 20 rounds with an overtired, yet friskily sleep resistant toddler would be insulting to to the term supper…🤦‍♀️

My dad always says for me to buy my mum a nice frock for Xmas or some scent. Why dont we say scent anymore?

Just wait til she starts shortening it to "sups". Then you'll have a problem on your hands!

Where I grew up it was breakfast, lunch and dinner. Supper didn't exist, even as a piece of toast. There might have been sniggering if someone had tried to use the word.

Don't be a big meanie

Oh I don't mean to be a meanie 😕

But she's started to use pretentious nicknames for her daughters. Think Belle-Belle and Nolly. If she gets a chocolate Labrador and calls it Biscuit or Hugo, I'm going to go NC.

I first heard 'kitchen sups' about 20 years ago in France, said by a British woman whose 'hubs' did the cooking!

The different usage of terms is very interesting. I was brought up on breakfadt, lunch, dinner. When a posh friend invited me to supper I knew she intended the meal I'd call dinner. But the image in my mind was tea & toast!

At school dinner ladies preside over school dinners and packed lunches.
I was taught that dinner refers to the main, usually cooked meal of the day. So eating sandwiches at midday is lunch, not dinner. Dinner would then be the evening meal.
'Tea' as a meal not a drink, means a light, early evening meal, usually .
The different usages seem to be both geographic and social.
And then there's afternoon tea, high tea and low tea, refering to the table it was served at.
Scottish high tea being different again!
Fascinating.
Thanks for your interesting post OP.

A 'kitchen supper'? Is that for the scullery maid? 🤣

I’m ‘nice area’ Surrey born and bred, and the evening meal has always been dinner here.’
IIRC the traditional meaning of ‘dinner’ is the main meal of the day, no matter when you have it.

Which is why I get a wee bit steamed up about people calling the big traditional 🎄roast ‘Christmas lunch’.

Is your sister called Hyacinth 🤔?

For me (irishwoman living in home counties):

Breakfast = first meal of the day
Lunch = the middle of the day
Tea = a drink OR a small meal in late afternoon with said drink
Dinner = evening meal
Supper = small meal before bed

I always think of supper as very Islington.It was when I lived near there.

I really struggle at work wrapping my head around us calling evening bookings 'dinner'. I still get a jolt when someone says we have 300 booked for dinner and think have we got enough staff for that???

Then realise they mean the evening bookings, when we have an army of staff coming in!

The midday bookings are for lunch. However when we take a break midday it is always referred to as a dinner break!

Ooooo what is low tea? I bet I have low tea. Although I'm up for ANY tea.

Oh lord, that's the two ponciest versions of supper all rolled into one. What fresh hell is this? 😂

Hehehe are you northern perchance - youngest dis calls tea dinner - thinking of chucking his DNA 🤣

I know. We suspect they differentiate as they have first tier friends who get to go in the dining room.

*checking!

Same. Can't bear it. I think it's because it's usually said in a sort of pompous, sneering way. As if they are far too posh to have tea/dinner.
If this was my sister she'd be getting the piss taken out of her ruthlessly 🤣

I don't know anyone who calls their meal between 11am-12-pm-1pm "dinner" ...it is lunch. Dinner is around 5pm-7pm depending on your preferences etc etc.

Some of these folks have two kitchens. One utility one for the scullery maid and one fancy one for their "kitchen suppers".....