dinner vs supper
- Thread starter Orleander
- Start date
I had that problem the first time I went France: they insisted I shared tea with them, since they knew it was an English tradition.
That's "High Tea" (Tea and cake), taken around four in the afternoon - hardly possible among those who work.
It's fallen out general use.
Regional, dear heart.
My mom's lived around the world and goes with the standard breakfast, lunch, and dinner. My dad's from Texas and has breakfast, dinner, and supper. Regionally where I live we have breakfast, lunch, and supper.
My mom's lived around the world and goes with the standard breakfast, lunch, and dinner. My dad's from Texas and has breakfast, dinner, and supper. Regionally where I live we have breakfast, lunch, and supper.
LOL, ah us Americans. Its like that whole pop, soda, coke thing.
Exactly! I started saying "supper" while trying to be more congenial.
God bless the South.Fraggle Rocker
Staff member
Dinner and dine come from Norman French diner, which is a variation of dejeuner, "to break one's fast," i.e., a fancy way to say "eat." The essence of "dinner" is "the main meal of the day." In pre-industrial times people needed a lot of calories to get them through a long day of physical labor, so the midday meal was the big one. I see posters from as recently as the 1940s, exhorting parents to give their children "a good breakfast, a good dinner and a good supper."
But as work became less physically demanding and neither employers nor workers wanted the two-hour midday break needed to go home for a big meal, the midday meal shrank to a quick lunch, a shortened form of luncheon, originally nuncheon, from Middle English none's chench, literally "noon's drink."
To sup originally meant to drink soup, and came to mean to eat in the evening, so supper is a word for the evening meal, whether it is heavy enough to be called "dinner," or a lighter meal following a mid-day dinner.
When I was a kid in the 1950s, my family always ate the big meal in the evening, so that was "dinner" and the mid-day meal was "lunch." However, on holidays and other special occasions our second meal was the big one and we called it "dinner." But we always referred to the evening meal as "supper" and used it interchangeably with "dinner" on normal days.
Then when eating in front of the (gigantic 12" black-and-white console model) TV became commonplace, we always referred to those evening meals as "supper." "Dinner" had to be slightly more formal.
But as work became less physically demanding and neither employers nor workers wanted the two-hour midday break needed to go home for a big meal, the midday meal shrank to a quick lunch, a shortened form of luncheon, originally nuncheon, from Middle English none's chench, literally "noon's drink."
To sup originally meant to drink soup, and came to mean to eat in the evening, so supper is a word for the evening meal, whether it is heavy enough to be called "dinner," or a lighter meal following a mid-day dinner.
When I was a kid in the 1950s, my family always ate the big meal in the evening, so that was "dinner" and the mid-day meal was "lunch." However, on holidays and other special occasions our second meal was the big one and we called it "dinner." But we always referred to the evening meal as "supper" and used it interchangeably with "dinner" on normal days.
Then when eating in front of the (gigantic 12" black-and-white console model) TV became commonplace, we always referred to those evening meals as "supper." "Dinner" had to be slightly more formal.
I don't think I have ever used nor have I heard anyone I know actually say "supper". I've read it in books and assumed it was just another word for dinner. I guess I live in a bubble.
I seem to remember you having some command of Catalan, right?
We have basically the same words here: dinar (lunch) and sopar (supper). Of course, we say "esmorzar" instead of the spanish "desayunar".
In fact, if you want to cover the whole spectrum of food intake in an ideal Spanish day, you'll have to account for (in chronological order): desayuno, almuerzo, aperitivo, comida, merienda, cena, resopón. And those are just the established, respectable ones.
God, we are pigs. No, seriously, nobody goes through all of that all year long, but it's possible to indulge in the whole shebang during the leisurely, neverending summer days (and nights).
By the way, Mr. Rocker, You-Who-Knows-Fucking-Everything-There-Is-To-Know-About-Words: Have you come across an equivalent for the word "merienda" in other languages? Other than the lame "teatime" and such. Or is it just a Spanish phenomenon?
superstring01
Moderator
Fraggle Rocker
Staff member
That would be an exaggeration. I spent two weeks in Valencia and by the time I left I could understand them almost as well as I understand Spanish, which is to say, far from perfectly. Nonetheless it shocked my hosts to learn that I could understand them at all, much less answer them back. Of course they would immediately insist that valencià is not the same as català.
I've never heard the word before, nor aperitivo, nor resopón. I learned the word almuerzo, but in Aztlán we usually say el lonche. Desayuno = French dejeuner.
Elevensies is a Hobbit meal.