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For what must be the 10th time in the last few months, I was doing the Sunday crossword puzzle and they had "dine" as the definition and "sup" for the answer. Sometimes it's the other way around.
One might suppose [he said with a supercilious sneer] that anyone who knows words knows that dinner and supper are not the same meal. When Jonathan Harker arrived chez Dracula, the count told him, "I have already dined and I do not sup."
Dinner has been at different times of the day in different ages and cultures. In 14th century Florence, it was in the late morning (cf. The Decameron where Bocaccio tells of the merry troupe dining in the late morning, then going for a nap), to mid-day (common among rural people and farm families to this day), to late afternoon, about 5:00 (common in cities and towns even now), to early evening (the classic Victorian dinner party had dinner at about 8:00) to late evening (dinner in Spain today is not served earler than 10:00).
Supper, however, always has been an evening meal. In Jane Austen and Victorian novels, supper follows a ball, and is served around midnight and is more of a collation than a meal. The word comes from the French souper which is in turn from soupe and indicates that supper was, in former times, a relatively light meal featuring soup and had the function of tiding you over for the night, your main meal of the day having been earlier.
And what other words for meals? A wedding breakfast, in British usage (it isn't used in the U.S.) may be in the afternoon if the wedding is not in the morning. Is the verb lunch used as commonly outside the U.S. as it is here? And then there's the vast subject of tea. And "elevenses". .... Do y'all in the UK do much other than eat?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Dinner and supper are used interchangeably here in Virginia.
With exceptions. Well, with one notable exception. Sometimes Sunday dinner can refer to a bountiful midday meal.
But my whole life I've heard people refer to both dinner and supper as the evening meals, and generally lunch as the midday meal.
Interesting literary examples you provided there, By!
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Pooh-Bah
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I remember a discussion on this a while ago and Rhubarb Commando having a good reply. Dinner in Britain was traditionally the main meal, served in the middle of the day in working class homes - in the days when it was possible to go home in the middle of the day and in the evening in upper class homes. As a child I would always call the midday meal dinner and the evening meal "tea". Supper would have been a light meal, such as toast, served before bedtime. These days I'd tend to use lunch, dinner and supper much as Wordy describes. [Edit]Here's a link to an earlier discussion: http://wordsmith.org/board/showthreaded.pl?Cat=&Board=words&Number=8454
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old hand
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The nuns in Saskatchewan (mostly of German descent; I'm not sure if that's relevant) who taught me high school used to use the word "lunch" to describe what anyone else might understand as a "bedtime snack". Apparently that's the older meaning of lunch and for some reason it has stuck around in Saskatchewan.
In my own lexicon, the midday meal is lunch, the evening meal is supper, and dinner is either of these if it is substantial. It gets confusing in my house because my husband calls the evening meal dinner pretty consistently. There was one incident of honest confusion one Saturday when we discussed "dinner" for Sunday and he was startled the next day to see me making a big fuss in the kitchen at noon - he was expecting this meal in the evening! (In my family the noon meal on Sunday was always the elaborate one, so it didn't occur to me that he thought otherwise...)
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Carpal Tunnel
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The origin of the word lunch seems to be from a word meaning a "chunk, thick piece of food", possible lump. B&M OED suggests it was based on the perceived relation between such pairs as hump/hunch and bump/bunch. The relation with luncheon may be that luncheon was based on an anaolgy with punch/puncheon and trunch/truncheon. The definitions given for lunch are a mid-day meal or a light meal between two more substantial meals.
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Carpal Tunnel
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In reply to:
The definitions given for
lunch are a mid-day meal or a light meal between two more substantial meals.
The mid-day meal part works for the geographical area I live in, but the "light meal" doesn't always work. I've gone out to lunches that have been substantial--and, yes, people do comment that the lunch was more of a "dinner." But they don't always comment that way.
Something else to point out about lunches. Many of the restaurants here offer "lunch menus." Say, for example, a Chinese restaurant. And usually the lunch menu items are less expensive that the "dinner" menus, and the portions are somewhat smaller. That would tie into the idea of lunch being a smaller meal that dinner or supper.
But not always! There are luncheon buffets--"Eat All You Want"--and, believe me, I've seen people pack away meals that would never be called "light." Well, they don't call 'em 'lunch buffets.' They're always billed as 'luncheon buffets.'
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enthusiast
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I tend to think of dinner as the evening meal, but I usually call it supper. One year, I was very excited to be invited over for Christmas dinner at my boyfriend's house. The arrangement was that I would phone him when I got home from my family's celebration. So I did, at 1 pm, figuring I had plenty of time to get there by 5 or 6. Imagine my dismay when he said they were just about to sit down to "dinner". Darn! Should've clarified things ahead of time.
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Carpal Tunnel
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In my experience holiday dinners are generally midday affairs, usually a bit later than when lunch would be served. The other common midday dinner, in my experience, is Sunday dinner, which will also be later than lunch.
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old hand
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old hand
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Well, they don't call 'em 'lunch buffets.' They're always billed as 'luncheon buffets.'
Not here. They go by either name. Actually, I think lunch buffets is more common and means only to refer to the fact that it occurs at noon. Most likely the "light meal" meaning is unknown to many.
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Carpal Tunnel
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i was taught, dinner is the main meal of the day, you may take your dinner midday, or early evening, or even late, but it is the most substantial meal.
Supper is alway a last (latest meal) before sleeping.
breakfast, is always the first meal of the day, from times past, in the old catholic canon, you had to have a 12 hour fast before recieving communion, so you went to mass first, and the broke your fast; breakfast was when you would break- your -fast. since a wedding would often be a church affair, (and since many of the rules of the church of engand are very similar to roman catholic rules) i suspect one would have a 'wedding breakfast' the parties would fast, be married at a ceremony that included a mass, take communion, and after break their fast.
my grandparents (in ireland) always had dinner at mid day, and their evening meal was tea. i can't remember if tea was more substantial than dinner, but it did often include hot food like boiled potatoes, and meat.
we always had dinner in the evening - except for sunday dinner, which was usually about 3 or 4 (breakfast was late, 9 or 10 or even 11 depending on which mass we went to)
in the evening (after 7 or so) we would have fruit or cheese, or some times soup-- but it was not quite an organized meal, rather just bits and pieces.
Lunch and luncheon was an american word/concept to my parents. my mother was particularlly confused by luncheonettes. Who would eat in one she wondered? she like to go to a pastry shop, and sit and have a cup of tea, and maybe a bit of sweet, but eat lunch out?
you took your lunch with you, going to work, or we children came home, and at lunch at home.
now, more often than not, i eat meal in front of the television, and i am very flexible about time and what i eat when.
but no one has brought up brunch-- the term for a late breakfast, early lunch, (11 ish or so) that friend often get together for on weekends. it's not quite breakfast, since many times, you have already had coffee and juice, if not solid food, and the food served is more substantial than breakfast fare.
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