Supper or dinner?

[Glorybound]

We've got folks from all over the world on the boards here, and I thought it might be interesting to find out what people call their evening meal, and what their mid-day meal might be called. So I'm posting up a poll to find out what name you like to call your evening meal. If your choice is not displayed please post on the thread what your term is. Thanks.

Growing up in the '60's in southern Indiana I always heard "supper" as the correct term for the evening meal. For lunch, we said "lunch" but I did hear the word ''dinner" referring to the midday meal at times, especially if it was a Sunday.

 

[K Hale]

Dinner here. Midday meal is lunch.

 

[Nathanb1]

Generally mid-day is lunch, night is supper. Unless it's a formal meal, then either would be dinner. If we eat a late lunch or early supper, in our house it's called lupper.

 

[pamc153PA]

When I was a kid, we always called it supper, but since I got married and out on my own, we call it dinner. Don't know why the change. But lunch was always lunch.

 

[sf46]

I don't like or use the word dinner at all if I can help it. The aversion for me is that so many folks around me use the word dinner for both the midday and/or evening meal. To me, this causes too much confusion as to which meal the person is actually referring to. So for me, I call the meals breakfast, lunch, supper.

 

[Nathanb1]

Call me for dinner or call me for lunch....just call me!!!!! Oh no--I'll be eating weinies and cold french fries and soggy fish in two more weeks....yuck.

 

[bama46]

Well, dinner is a bit high falutin...
"Let's eat supper"
" we are goin out to dinner"....and the joke is that goin out to dinner is to Mickey D's

 

[K Hale]

Word Origin & History

dinner
c.1300, from O.Fr. disner, originally "breakfast," later "lunch," noun use of infinitive disner (see dine). Always used in Eng. for the main meal of the day; shift from midday to evening began with the fashionable classes.


Word Origin & History

supper
c.1275, "the last meal of the day," from O.Fr. super "supper," noun use of super "to eat the evening meal," which is of Gmc. origin (see sup (1)).

"Formerly, the last of the three meals of the day (breakfast, dinner, and supper); now applied to the last substantial meal of the day when dinner is taken in the middle of the day, or to a late meal following an early evening dinner. Supper is usually a less formal meal than late dinner." [OED]

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[catspjamas]

Evening meal is supper, mid-day meal is lunch, except on Sunday's when it's dinner.

 

[O'Bruadair]

Don't know about y'all but my Lord served the LAST SUPPER! Guess yankees and other heathens can call it what they want (just kidding).

But, as Hale points out in their original meanings supper is the evening meal and dinner is sometime after breakfast and before supper. Don't how yankees got so confused that they started eating "dinner" at supper time and not eating supper at all. Must have something to do with all the snow and long winters.

 

[jojo]

supper
c.1275, "the last meal of the day," from O.Fr. super "supper," noun use of super "to eat the evening meal," which is of Gmc. origin (see sup (1)).

"Formerly, the last of the three meals of the day (breakfast, dinner, and supper); now applied to the last substantial meal of the day when dinner is taken in the middle of the day, or to a late meal following an early evening dinner. Supper is usually a less formal meal than late dinner." [OED]

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[/QUOTE]


The word soup also comes from old French; supper literally means to eat soup.

As for the original question: both words are interchangable for me...whichever pops out of my mouth first, although now that I think on it, I've never called thanksgiving meal supper.

 

[Brenal]

Lunch is always just Lunch, except on Sunday when it becomes Sunday Lunch, Dinner is in the evening except on Sunday when it becomes Tea. I don't know anyone who uses the term Supper these days although it was in general use when I was a kid when dinner was the mid-day meal and we all used to have it at school. Even now Lunch is Dinner when it is had at school.

 

[Old Hickory]

Breakfast-lunch-supper around here.

 

[Glorybound]

Cats, I like your new avatar!

 

[RobertP]

Growing up, the main meal was at mid-day and was called dinner, the evening meal supper. My wife used the term dinner for the evening meal which she usually cooked. Since I was grateful for what she had prepared and was hungry, I came to call it dinner too!

 

[Old Bay]

I find them to be quite interchangable and use both.

 

[johan_steele]

Breakfast, lunch then Dinner/Supper used interchangeably.

 

[diddyriddick]

Call me whatever you like, just don't call me late for dinner....Er, Supper!

 

[Pittsburgh]

Breakfast is breakfast, lunch is lunch and dinner is dinner.

 

[Mike Werner]

Supper when beer is served and Dinner when wine is served. Most of the time it is Dinner.