What's your evening/late afternoon meal called?

[Lavinda Past]

Breakfast, dinnertime, teatime

 

[hammocity]

Growing up in Gorton, the three meals were:

Breakfast (self explanatory)
Dinner (that is why we had Dinner Ladies)
Tea (that's why it's called Tea Time)

No "brunch"
No "supper"

Yep, all this dinner in the evening and supper is absolute middle class bollocks, going out to eat at night is “going for a nosebag” dinner in the evening ffs, doesn’t exist.

 

[Lavinda Past]

What about when you took your dinner in from home? The dinner ladies supervised you whilst you ate out of your lunch box.

It’s all madness.

Nobody brought dinner from home when I was a nipper.
My dad and his pals used to take butties to work in 'snap' tins and called them their'twenty', because they had 20 minutes break at midday to eat their dinner.

 

[Lavinda Past]

Must be us paupers who call it breakfast, dinner and tea. Well, us and a few lads I used to work up the chimneys with.

Chimleys

 

[hammocity]

Nobody brought dinner from home when I was a nipper.
My dad and his pals used to take butties to work in 'snap' tins and called them their'twenty', because they had 20 minutes break at midday to eat their dinner.

I used to have a mate from Stoke (he was dating a girl from Ashton and was up here at weekends, we called him Bag of Coal) who was a Miner, they all called their dinner “snap” think it came from the noise the tin they stored the dinner time sandwiches made when opening and closing, maybe someone could explain?

 

[Citizen of Legoland]

The word “dinner” comes from the latin word “cena” which was originally a meal (the 2nd meal of the day) taken between noon and mid-afternoon. These meals eventually became larger events where guests gathered and the timings changed to accommodate more courses and guests. Eventually the meals were starting so late (2pm onwards) that they needed to introduce a new late morning snack, called “prandium”, and they were ending so late that they abandoned the original 3rd (now 4th) meal called “vesperna”.

Of course the hoi-polloi had work to do so their cena remained a single course around midday.

And there you have it. If you have work to do and call your 5pm meal dinner, you’re incorrect, unless you’re inviting guests to a dinner party which can be any time from 2pm onwards.

 

[Gareth Barry Conlon]

I'll have a read of this thread at lunchtime.

 

[hammocity]

The word “dinner” comes from the latin word “cena” which was originally a meal (the 2nd meal of the day) taken between noon and mid-afternoon. These meals eventually became larger events where guests gathered and the timings changed to accommodate more courses and guests. Eventually the meals were starting so late (2pm onwards) that they needed to introduce a new late morning snack, called “prandium”, and they were ending so late that they abandoned the original 3rd (now 4th) meal called “vesperna”.

Of course the hoi-polloi had work to do so their cena remained a single course around midday.

And there you have it. If you have work to do and call your 5pm meal dinner, you’re incorrect, unless you’re inviting guests to a dinner party which can be any time from 2pm onwards.

I’m very impressed!

 

[Citizen of Legoland]

I should add that “lunch” is a suitable alternative word for dinner. English has many cases of multiple words due to its capability of absorbing words from different languages and the rich dialects that help retain them. The source of the word is uncertain but it was once considered a vulgar word by the OED (19th century), associated with the common working classes. It seems to have evolved in the 16th century and at that time just meant a lump of meat for eating. The similar word nuncheon from earlier 14th century means a drink or slight snack taken at noon.

So there we have it. Choose whatever word you want, two with strong etymological histories or one that’s probably slang, derived incorrectly, hence the mystery.

 

[Blackley_Blue]

Tea


Oh and it's a muffin...