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In Canada, do you have breakfast, lunch, and dinner, or breakfast, dinner, and supper?
When I'm speaking with rural people, I have to remember to say breakfast, dinner, supper. When I'm speaking to city people I switch to breakfast, lunch and dinner. When we/I are invited anywhere, I have to remember where they are from and more often than not, ask for clarification since I'm completely confused by then!
When I'm speaking with rural people, I have to remember to say breakfast, dinner, supper. When I'm speaking to city people I switch to breakfast, lunch and dinner. When we/I are invited anywhere, I have to remember where they are from and more often than not, ask for clarification since I'm completely confused by then!
I grew up with breakfast, dinner, supper.
I say breakfast, lunch, and supper. I rarely say “dinner”, and when I do, it refers to lunch.
I say breakfast, lunch, and supper. I rarely say “dinner”, and when I do, it refers to lunch.
I grew up with "supper" except on Sunday, when we had dinner in the early afternoon, after church.
It was one of those words that I became conscious as a kid that we said differently from other people. We said "cellar", other people said "basement", "washrag" instead of "washcloth", "tap" instead of "faucet". I was fifth generation in a small town that had been rural and mostly immigrants from the Netherlands in the late 19th/early 20th centuries and still had a small farm or two and we even had chickens, but we were only 30 miles from NYC and when later immigrants moved to our town from the city, they used different words. I can't remember informing my grandmother that "ain't" wasn't a word after she used it. She was not happy with me telling her that.
When I met the Canadian BF, I was happy to hear him refer to the evening meal as "supper". I didn't hear any Canadians refer to lunch as dinner, though.
Is there a word in English that North Americans use for what the British might call afternoon tea? Or don't North Americans eat an "official" meal in the afternoon?
Russian Mennonites have something called "vaspa" around 4 in the afternoon and always on Sundays. I was once told to invite my grandparents for vaspa and because I was trying to sound important by using my English I invited them for supper. My mother very quickly grabbed the phone out of my hand!
"Vaspa" would have come about, imo, from vespers, and farmers coming to the house from the field for vespers and killing two birds with one stone by having a cold meal of bread, butter, jam, pickles and cheese, and if you're lucky, a sweet. I don't know if other cultures have something similar in terms of an afternoon meal other than British tea time.
As a Montrealer, breakfast, lunch, and dinner when speaking English, breakfast, dinner, supper when speaking in French (déjeunner, diner, souper) or speaking English in mixed company (admittedly more true of supper then lunch).
When tea is had, which is very rare, I call it tea, or a snack if it is small.
I say breakfast, lunch and supper. My well travelled in-laws used to call their meals the morning meal, afternoon meal and evening meal.
And sometimes I have breakfast and lunch combined as one meal and then it's called brunch. Usually around 11 a.m. like a Mother's Day Brunch or Birthday Brunch with the family at a restaurant.
If i'm going out for a fancy supper at a restaurant in the evening I call it dinner out or dining out.
I almost always have dessert with a pot of tea a couple of hours after supper at home every night. I call it dessert.
And before bed I almost always have a light bedtime meal of piping hot creamy cereal (oatmeal usually) with real cream and fresh sliced fruit about half an hour before going to bed. I call it my bedtime snack. (hot cereal helps me get to sleep).
My impression is that "supper" is the traditional term for the evening meal in Canadian English, but that it has been giving way to "dinner" with recent generations.
As a Montrealer, breakfast, lunch, and dinner when speaking English, breakfast, dinner, supper when speaking in French (déjeunner, diner, souper) or speaking English in mixed company (admittedly more true of supper then lunch).
When tea is had, which is very rare, I call it tea, or a snack if it is small.
Interesting things about the meals in French:
Quebec, Acadia, Belgium and Switzerland:
déjeuner-dîner-souper
France and most of the rest of the world that speaks French:
petit déjeuner-déjeuner-dîner
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