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folklaur
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I am curious --
do you call the last meal of the day "dinner" or "supper"? And regionally, where are you?
How about the "mid day meal"? Is it "lunch" or is it something else where you live?
Thanks,
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trish
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We call the last meal of the day supper and lunch... lunch or dinner. We live in Alberta Canada. However my inlaws from one province ( Saskatchewan ) over call supper... dinner. So when we visit I get confused as to what's for dinner.....  .
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Paula in MN
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I have always called the noon meal lunch and the 5 p.m. meal dinner. I grew up in the Twin Cities, and now live in Northern Minnesota.
I remember my Grandparent's calling the noon meal dinner and the 5 p.m. meal supper. They grew up on farms and lived in Southern Minnesota.
This is a fun topic - I've always wondered about these phrases. Can't wait to see other responses!
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Rebecca
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We live in northern Ohio and while I was growing up, my parents called the noon meal "lunch" and the evening meal "supper". My husband who grew up on the PA/OH border calls the evening meal "dinner".
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Anne McD
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I'm from upstate NY, but here in NOVA we (my family) still say lunch and dinner. However, my dad, born and bread in upstate NY will sometimes call dinner supper, and refers to breakfast as breakie, which I think is Austrailian, right? 
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kingvozzo
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Midday meal is lunch. Our last meal is supper or dinner--used inter-changeably. I grew up in NYC...
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Becky Parker
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We have lunch at noon and dinner at 6 PM. We live in Michigan.
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JodieLyn
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lunch and dinner here in OR, grew up in California
My theory is.. that generally dinner was the big meal of the day.. lunch was the midday meal if it was smaller than the dinner in the evening.. or supper was the smaller meal in the evening if dinner was midday.
that generally dinner and supper were agrarian and lunch and dinner were urban
though off of that you have people who had dinner and supper traditionally end up living more urban and so they mirrored the components of lunch and dinner.. but kept the names that people grew up hearing.
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Dawn
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We have lunch at noon and supper at the end of the day. Dinner is what we have on holidays and Sundays around 1 p.m. - as in Thanksgiving Dinner or Sunday Dinner. It's a bigger, more formal meal.
I grew up north of Boston and still live here!
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Maryan
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kingvozzo wrote:
| Midday meal is lunch. Our last meal is supper or dinner--used inter-changeably. |
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Ditto -- I grew up in CT (now in NOVA)
I'll only add that, similar to Dawn. ... "Dinner" is the big meal in the afternoon on Thanksgiving (or Easter, etc.)... BUT we have three meals on holidays  -- and and "Supper" is the leftovers of Hot Open Faced Turkey sandwiches in the evening.
That's the only time that I can think where the names switch a bit.
It's fun to hear the differences!
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Taffy
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Well, I grew up in British Columbia and lunch was at midday and supper and dinner were essentially interchangeable although dinner would be an earlier evening meal than supper.
When I moved to southern Saskatchewan, I learned that dinner is the noon meal, supper is in the evening and lunch was served after a late night meeting or concert!
I've given up on ever figuring this one out!
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Matilda
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I live in North Texas and we eat lunch at noon and dinner around 6 pm. My mom grew up in South Texas and she always ate supper at noon and dinner in the evening. Go figure!
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extremeknitter
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midday = lunch
evening = supper OR dinner.... interchangeable.
I think it is all the moving dh and I did as children and over the course of our marriage. We lived in Europe, upper midwest, midwest, south, west and east coasts. I guess we're just a bit confused.
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joann10
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We are in central NY and we have lunch at noon and supper at 6:00. My farming grandparents always had dinner at noon and supper in the evening.
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MacBeth
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Dawn wrote:
We have lunch at noon and supper at the end of the day. Dinner is what we have on holidays and Sundays around 1 p.m. - as in Thanksgiving Dinner or Sunday Dinner. It's a bigger, more formal meal.
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Dawn's right. These are the real names for the meals in question. 
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folklaur
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Oh, this IS fun! Thank you for answering! What made me think of it was I was reading Boxcar Children to dd4, and they use supper/dinner (no "lunch"). Then I thought about how we used "dinner/supper" interchangably. Except, as when mentioned, when you are talking about a "formal" meal (Sunday Dinner, Christmas Dinner) but then it is usually earlier in the day. I hadn't realized that until it was mentioned! I grew up in NJ. So then I wondered about everyone else
It must be the linguistic anthropologist in me  . Actually, in my linguistics class in college (here in Arizona), the Prof. made me say the words, "Mary, Marry, and Merry" during class one time. Being from NJ, each of those words sounds distinct when I say them, but here in AZ (and CO where dh is from) there is no difference between Mary and Marry, and little for Merry.
I really do find this so interesting!
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stacykay
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Another Michigander, here...
I grew up with lunch at noon, and dinner, sometimes supper, at 6P.
My dh, who grew up 3-4 miles away from me, had dinner at noon and supper at 6P. I don't know if this has anything to do with it, but his parents are all-Polish- maybe a European thing? Now that I think of it, my mum (who only said "dinner,") was raised in MO, with family that has been in N. America since 1600's. My dad, whose parents were from England and Germany, will often say "supper."
Not sure how that pans out for others?
God Bless,
Stacy in MI
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helene
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Growing up in the Northeast we always called the last meal of the day "supper." I later went to college in California and referred to this meal as "supper" in conversation with an 18 year old friend. His eyes lit up. He held up a huge imaginary triangle (or even worse, was it a milk pail?) and pretended to clang it loudly with a metal spoon yelling, "SUUUUUUKIE! Y'ALL! SUUUUUUPPERTIME!"..........I have called it "dinner" ever since.
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MaryM
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That's a very funny story, Helene.
JodieLyn wrote:
My theory is.. that generally dinner was the big meal of the day.. lunch was the midday meal if it was smaller than the dinner in the evening.. or supper was the smaller meal in the evening if dinner was midday.
that generally dinner and supper were agrarian and lunch and dinner were urban |
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I believe Jodie is right on target with the general distinctions here. I grew up (in Idaho) with breakfast-lunch-dinner/supper, except when we stayed at my granparent's farm (European immigrants-agrarian culture) when it was breakfast - dinner - supper (the mid-day dinner being the biggest meal).
I found this on answers.com - very interesting.
The Invention of Dinner
Throughout history, city dwellers tended to dine later and longer. Also, many travelers made the evening meal their main meal, as this was the time when they and their horses generally settled into an inn. In agrarian communities, however, where work began at daybreak, the first and principal meal occurred in the middle of the day. In medieval Europe, this midday meal was ideally eaten at the ninth hour after sunrise or "none," from which the word "noon" derives its meaning. This meal might have been taken in the fields and, especially in hotter climates such as the Mediterranean, been followed by a siesta.
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doris
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Breakfast, lunch and supper here for us in the UK!
Having said that, lots of people would say dinner for the midday meal -- for example, it's always 'school dinner' not school lunch, and my mother (who says lunch otherwise) would say 'dinner' to refer to a small child's midday meal. And it's always 'Christmas dinner', never Christmas lunch.
I think it's also regional/class related here. The evening meal is more often 'tea' in the north of England. In Scotland, they would have 'tea' as their evening meal, and then supper as a small snack before bed (milk and biscuits or similar). I know people (some of whom I'm related to ) who are very sniffy about people who say 'tea' for their evening meal. ('Tea' of course is well known to all 4Realers as a light afternoon meal consisting of sandwiches, cakes and, well, tea.)
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4Real Forums : Tea and Conversation
Topic: Dinner or Supper?
