British/American language question

[tex111]

Can someone help me understand the vocabulary when it comes to understanding the various meals in a day. Silly, I know, but it's been bugging me for ages. As I understand it it goes something like this:

Breakfast - early morning meal. Can be simple like cereal or toast or more elaborate like a fry up.

Brunch - around 11.00 and usually more elaborate like eggs benedict or quiche

Lunch - midday meal. Often something cold like a sandwich or salad or something simple like soup but can be a more elaborate hot meal.

Tea - 3.00. Consisting of light sandwiches, scones, cakes, and of course tea.

Dinner - early evening meal around 5.00-7.00. Hot meal, usually meat and two veg and maybe dessert.

Supper - late evening meal, 9.00 or later. Usually something simple like cold meats, cheeses and breads or maybe leftovers.

My confusion comes from things like 'school dinners' - why are they called that when they're the midday meal? And 'Wedding Breakfast' which I've had in the afternoon and consisted of a roast. And I've heard some people refer to their evening meal as 'tea'. I'd like to understand the differences. Are there historical reasons or is there just something I'm missing? Thanks so much for your help.

[expatinscotland]

I prefer the fish single myself. The supper is too much for me to eat at the once.

We can't afford to visit the US and at this rate never will - my family visits us twice a year - so I don't think I'll have any worries about DD getting confused.

[expatkat]

My nearly six year oldwith such a look of sweet consternationasks me this constantly. . .he says, "The meal that comes after breakfast, the one we have in school. Is it lunch or is it dinner?" I always say, "Darling, in America we call it lunch by I have no idea what they say here. Just say whatever everybody else says!"

[madmarchhare]

I went into a chippie down south (am from yorkshire) and was ask if I wanted my peas warming up, eh?

[mawbroon]

Now, lets not even get started on when you go into the chippie and ask for a fish supper......

In england you would probably be asked if you wanted chips with it, but here in Scotland a "supper" from the chippie is your item of choice WITH chips.

Then there's the whole salt & sauce debate........

[madmarchhare]

Slighty off topic and lowering the tone but MIL gets confused with todays lanuage and still insists on 'stroking her pussy'

[expatinscotland]

Forget snortin' at 'em, I was smoking 'em!

[madmarchhare]

Yes, I was snorting at 'fag' too.

[expatinscotland]

I adopted 'fag' right away, Hausfrau, out of survival, cuz I was a pack a day smoker when I first got here .

[expatinscotland]

When I first got here, my Scots husband took me to a supermarket as I had a craving for jelly babies. I asked him if he wanted anything, as he was going to sit in the car and have a fag. He asked for some 'orange squash'. I thought it odd, as he wasn't much a veg fan then.

But I duly went to the produce section and looked and looked for a pumpkin, or a butternut, or some other type of orange squash. No joy. So I got him a courgette.

I had no idea orange squash was 'diluting juice'.

Needless to say, he was very perplexed when I came back to the car w/the veg instead of a bottle of juice!

[tex111]

Hausfrau, same as in the States. Pudding is one certain dish a bit like Angel Delight. Some people make it from scratch but it's usually made from a packet. I'll never forget waiting for my pudding the first time I was offered it in England. We had a very nice apple tart but the 'pudding' never appeared.

Talk about funny language mix-ups. I'll never forget DH, who's English, asking for a rubber at his office in the States! I was impressed that the stationary attendant was so calm and just said 'We don't supply those'. Must've thought Englishmen were sex crazed fiends after that!

[Chandra]

BAdgerbadger there's a Spanish joke about that!

The follow up to your post would be as follows:

me
"Would you like tea or coffee?"

him
"Yes"

me
"yes what?"

him
"yes, thank you."

[lucy5]

My candian friend laughs when I say knickers to dd, as in her mind that means red and lacey and possibly crotchless.

[BadgerBadger]

Chandra, ROFL at the "Do you mind..."

I tried to answer your question, but met myself coming back.


DH's most irritating plonkerism is

me
"Would you like tea or coffee?"

him
"Yes"

Aaargh!

[Chandra]

oer...no, from the American point of view, pudding is just pudding if it's a pudding, otherwise is a dessert

[Chandra]

Another puzling thing is when somebody ask you something saying "do you mind if..."?

In US, if you say "no" that means they can go ahead

In the UK the same is understood if you say "yes".

[Chandra]

My most emabarrasing American/English mistake is when I started telling the husband of a DH's coworker that the school I attended required girls to use grey pants. but very, very embarrased whe I finally understood why he was feeling a bit uncomfortable with the conversation )

[tex111]

Lucy5,, that's funny. I've been told that some of my American English sounds very old-fashioned. Words like stove instead of cooker and galoshes instead of wellies. I guess some old words stick in one country and evolve in the other one.

[lucy5]

I find it fascinating, here in Spain I've had to get my head around different times. Afternoon can be anything up to about 10 in extreme cases. People would say lets meet in the afternoon and mean 6 or 7 o'clock.

The other diffrence I have noticed between North American English and British English is sick and ill. My Canadian friend says that she is sick and at first I thought she was a hypochondriac because she only had a cold.

I was at her house a few weeks ago with an merican friend and during the conversation I used the words dustmen and they both started giggling, they had just read Victorian House and found my antiquated English highly amusing.

[KateandtheGirls]

Haven't read the whole thread, but growing up in the north of England we called the midday meal "dinner" and the evening meal "tea" regardless of what it was. Now that I live in the States I've adopted their usage (also the same as the south of England as far as I know): breakfast, lunch and dinner. Although my (American) mother in law uses the word "supper" when it's casual and informal, "dinner" if it's more fancy or in a restaurant.

[tex111]

It's so interesting how mobile language is in the UK. In my experience in the States we tend to be very specific and very literal. Other than dinner and supper which basically mean the same thing but are used by different types of people (country people would be more likely to say supper and city people dinner) the other meals use the same word wherever you are. Unless there are some expats who'd like to correct me on that. Must admit that my experience of the US is mostly in the South.