Quote:
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Originally Posted by Frank van den Eeden
there's dinner and supper also ...
still they call the evening meal "tea"
I suppose (= my feeling) that dinner is, in fact, also the evening meal, but a bit more "official", not just an evening meal.
I think you go out for dinner in a smart restaurant, and have tea at home, or perhaps in the local pub.
I never heard "supper" (only when I studied English).
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Frank:
I don't want to hijack the tea thread, just to explain how
dinner and supper are used
in the U.S
Most people in the U.S. now refer to the evening meal as dinner and
supper is rarely heard except in the home and in rural America, mostly in the South, but it is still in use.
The
noon meal is generally called
lunch but it is
also called dinner depending on where you live. In some parts of the South, especially rural areas, dinner is at noon. And
those who call the noon meal dinner refer to the evening meal as supper.
I recently heard a friend from Canada say supper and he told me that it is used is some areas there in much the same way as I described. He was from a farming family and that I think is where you will hear supper used most. I grew up eating breakfast, dinner and supper. But now I eat breakfast, lunch and dinner.
I have also heard supper used to describe a very late meal that was eaten well after normal dinner hours...as in, "we had a late supper".