Dinner Or Lunch..?

[harv]

I've always seen things as Breakfast, Dinner and Tea because when I was a kid that's what working class families called them back in the 70s and early 80s. But then the 80s happened with yuppies and people being ashamed of being working class.

Since then, probably from the mid-80s onwards, it seems to be Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner.

So where do you stand in the Dinner/Lunch debate..? And has your perception of each one (assuming you're old enough) changed..?

[Late]

Breakfast, Dinner, Tea.
Always has been, always will be.

[harv]

Glad to hear it mate. I'm exactly the same but my brother (who's a right fucking snob and a complete wanker) and my Mum have changed from Breakfast, Dinner, Tea to Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner. Not sure about my Dad unfortunately because I haven't seen or talked to him for years. I'd imagine that he'd be in the Breakfast, Dinner, Tea camp too.

[chelseachelsea]

It's still breakfast, Dinner, tea for me as well.....

but dinner is now more like lunch and tea is more like dinner??? if you know what I mean.

[jman]

You drink tea, hence why dinner is dinner

You can have Sunday lunch or Sunday dinner, whose heard of Sunday tea though?

[harv]

Doesn't matter what you eat and drink. Dinner is Dinner and Tea is Tea. You can have a roast on Sunday at 1pm and sarnies on Sunday night at 6 or 7pm, or sarnies at 1pm and a roast at 6 or 7pm but it's still Breakfast, Dinner, Tea...just that you're having a roast dinner for your tea in the latter case.

I'm pretty sure it's a class thing. I've always considered myself working class (despite my current health problems and employment situation), but it seems that these days people see being working class a bad thing. I've always been proud of it myself. I also think there may be a North-South divide, with people living in the North being more inclined to be proud of their working class status.

[jman]

So when you took your own food to school to eat during the day, you'd call it a packed dinner as opposed to a packed lunch? lol

[harv]

No, see my Sunday example. You're having a packed lunch for dinner, the same way you'd have a roast dinner for your tea. It's all about when you eat, not what you eat.

[Late]

I usually have a butty (not a sandwich btw) around 1:30pm and a cooked meal around 6:30pm, but irrespective of what I'm actually eating they'll always be dinner and tea - even though the cooked meal could perhaps better be described as a dinner. It's just what they've always been called in my house/family.

Edit autocorrect

[chelseachelsea]

I usually have a butty (not a sandwich btw) around 1:30pm and a cooked meal around 6:30pm, but irrespective of what I'm actually eating they'll always be done and tea - even though the cooked meal could perhaps better be described as a dinner. It's just what they've always been called in my house/family.

Exactly what I was trying to say.

[AVFCRoss]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hObgNDwF0xs

[harv]

Blimey, he has his dinner and tea early

[jman]

No, see my Sunday example. You're having a packed lunch for dinner, the same way you'd have a roast dinner for your tea. It's all about when you eat, not what you eat.

From Wikipedia..

The abbreviation "lunch", in use from 1823,[1] is taken from the more formal "luncheon,"[2] which the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) reports from 1580 as describing a meal that was inserted between more substantial meals.

So lunch is used not only to describe smaller meals... but also meals in-between.. so if you are of the belief of its "when you eat".. then you should be using lunch to describe the meal in-between.. 

I think you're right.. its when you eat.. not what you eat.. which is why Sunday Lunch describes a roast done at lunch time and Sunday Dinner describes a roast done at dinner time.. how hard is that to understand ?  There's no such thing as Sunday Tea.. because Tea is a drink.. not a time of day when meals are eaten 

Not only that.. but its got nothing to do with working class.. if it had.. why would working-class people refer to the break in the middle of the day as "LUNCH-breaks" ?

[Late]

On a Sunday we always have a bacon butty midday and a big roast meal early evening.
The bacon butty is still dinner, and the roast is still tea. Even though we might say "are we having a Sunday Dinner for tea today?"
(We'd probably have it at dinner time, but our lass works half day most Sundays.)

As for "meal in-between" - in between what?
I don't have breakfast, I only eat two meals a day, so neither (or both if you ignore sleep) is in-between meals.

Tea is both a drink (a bloody awful one at that) and a mealtime. A mealtime in the early evening. When Americans might call it dinner. But that's foreigners for you - they do things differently and they call things different names.

I'm English, and a Yorkshire man, and I call stuff what it properly is.
Don't bother quoting your fancy sources. I'm right and won't be swayed by your false arguments.

[jman]

A meal in-between.. you can take how you want.. a meal between breakfast and dinner or a meal between morning and evening.. doesn't matter what you call it.. its your lunch.

Ahh yes, a Yorkshire man.. should of known late.. the same people who decided that puddings deserved to be eaten at the same time as a roast dinner.. certainly cant accuse them of getting any meal time conventions confused   

Anyway.. I think I deserve at least another quote... again from Wiki

Tea can refer to any of several different meals or mealtimes, depending on a country's customs and its history of drinking tea. However, in those countries where the term's use is common, the influences are generally those of the former British Empire (now the Commonwealth of Nations).

In other words, if you use the phrase tea to mean your dinner.. your an old bastard lol.