JFF- Dinner or Supper?

We usually say dinner and sometimes supper, but I really don't give two figs... it's usually just:
"Come EAT!"

Too funny! We are lunch & dinner. My relatives, who are farmers, were always dinner & supper. When asked about this, they said it was because, back in the day, the farmers would eat their big meal mid-day. Their dutiful wives would cook all morning, and bring out a big meal to the hungry men who were working hard. Big mid day meal = dinner.

I believe the rule is... You must be over 90 yo to eat supper otherwise you eat dinner. 😉

Lunch is at lunch time... It is not dinner😊

Breakfast, lunch and dinner as it was intended ;)

Or you could do it the truly correct way, the Hobbit way...

Aragorn: Gentlemen, we do not stop 'til nightfall.
Pippin: What about breakfast?
Aragorn: You've already had it.
Pippin: We've had one, yes. What about second breakfast?
[Aragorn turns and walks off in disgust]
Merry: I don't think he knows about second breakfast, Pip.
Pippin: What about elevenses? Luncheon? Afternoon tea? Dinner? Supper? He knows about them, doesn't he?
Merry: I wouldn't count on it.

who cares what you call it, so long as you eat your dessert first.

F. B.

I live in rural pennsylvania and there's a large population of Pennsylvania Germans, Amish, Mennonite etc. It goes breakfast, dinner, supper. Everywhere else it's breakfast, lunch, dinner. I appreciate either as long as someone else is cooking

I think it all depends on where/when you were raised. My Grandmother always called a late lunch, around 2:00'ish, "dinner." But we always thought "dinner" was what the rich had around 7:00 p.m. and would joke about it being a la-de-dah type of thing.

But in my parents house, we grew up having "supper" around 5:30 pm when my Daddy got home from work. Then to really confuse everything, once I got married my husband always referred to it as "dinner" when he got home from work and we would eat around 5:30-6:00 p.m.!!

No matter what time of day it is or whatever meal it is, now I just say "let's eat!" That seems to work for everyone!! lol!!

Fun question!!

I grew up in a small town in the foothills of the Blue Ridge in Virginia, and we designated meals as follows:
The morning meal was breakfast.
The regular noon meal was lunch.
The evening meal was supper.
We also had dinner. Dinner was a large meal, usually starting any time between 2 and 4 on Sundays or holidays. If you were having company over for a meal, you'd usually be serving dinner.

My midwestern hubby grew up calling lunch dinner and dinner dinner. Of course, he's wrong. ;-)

Hereis the real meal plan:
Breakfast
Second breakfast
Elevenses
Lunch
afternoon tea
Dinner
Supper

Sorted.

I say lunch and dinner.

My grandmom says dinner and supper. I always sat down to Sunday dinner after church...at 12:30PM.

So I fall in both camps, because I'll call it whatever my grandmom wants to call it just as long as she calls me to the table.

In Canadian English we eat breakfast, lunch and supper, but if we are going out for supper it is dinner. In Canadian French however, it is dejeuner, diner and souper. My husband and I speak English, but our kids are bi-lingual. On the weekends they eat lunch at home, but during the week they eat diner at school.

LOL. Like you, I grew up with "supper" (or, more accurately, "suppah") and later switched to the more dignified "dinner." The midday meal is lunch, unless you're serving a large, formal, sit-down meal on a Sunday or holiday and then that is dinner. I guess you could then call the evening meal supper or tea, but in my house it's called "if you're hungry fix what you want I already gave you dinner earlier and I'm not cooking again."

bwahahaha.... (I wonder if anyone is going to be a big whiny pants and think you are being offensive as opposed to funny)
I am clearly superior and follow the gods of moral purity...it's dinner.

It's dinner for me. Supper is the same thing as dinner....

My grandma calls lunch dinner as well. It's annoying when I invite her over for dinner, and she shows up at noon (before I get the house cleaned up...)

My husbands family and have had it out about this.
My family:
Breakfast 7-9:00 (depending on wake ups)
Lunch-11-100
Dinner is 5:00-6:00

My husbands family..

Supper is 2pm .. YEP.. 2 pm after 10 years together, it still blows my mind. and I forget.

Preach on sister!
LOL

I also grew up with "supper" as the evening meal. But our midday meal was "lunch", not "dinner."

My husband grew up with an older generation at the helm and they had dinner for the evening meal.

Today, we have lunch at midday and dinner for the evening meal. My kids mock the term "supper" and I am not even sure how they became aware there was any controversy.

However, if you do any study on the subject, you may find that historically, it isn't about the time of the meal so much as the formality of the meal. The most formal/biggest meal of the day was at one time, the midday meal. And as such, it was "dinner". Supper was a lighter more casual affair and was later on in the evening.
Nowadays, people typically have their largest and most formal meal in the evening, so IT becomes "dinner" and the earlier meal, well, we call it lunch, but is used to be referred to as luncheon, I think.

When does dear dee dee eat her largest meal of the day?
---
ETA
And yes, on Sundays, the midday meal is often "Sunday Dinner" because most people in our region eat their largest meal after church on Sunday. The evening meal on Sundays is more of a grazing through the leftovers in the kitchen, or a quick meal of pizza or something lighter. The rest of the week, the big meal is always in the evening and the midday meal is much lighter.

Lunch and dinner in our house.

I only hear the phrase supper when reading or learning of the Lord's "Last Supper". So maybe...your nutty friend really is grouped in with the gods instead of you and me :)

But I am stickin' to my lunch and dinner .

LOL I call lunch, lunch and dinner, dinner. My MIL will confuse me because we will have Thanksgiving dinner at 1pm, which to me is lunch time still.

Obviously it's lunch and dinner.

But is it soda or pop?

I'm with you. I grew up with the term supper, but somewhere along the way I switched to dinner and much prefer that term. My kids use "dinner." I've NEVER used "dinner" for lunch. That does seem strange, although in the farming community where my dad grew up I think a large midafternoon meal on Sunday was often referred to as "Sunday dinner." Lunch is lunch! (-:

Breakfast - morning meal
Brunch - mid morning meal
Lunch - middle of the day meal
Dinner/Supper - I use them interchangeably but to me they both mean the evening meal.

Until I went away to college, I thought dinner and supper meant the same thing - the evening meal. There was:

Breakfast
Brunch (only if it's between 9:30 and 11:00)
Lunch
Dinner/Supper

Then I heard some people (farming communities) call the noonish meal Dinner, because Dinner refers to the biggest meal of the day. Still didn't make sense to me, as never in my entire life had lunch been the biggest meal of my day. That was always the evening meal.

I still make no distinction between the two words. They mean the same thing to me. But I respect the fact that they don't mean the same thing to everyone :-)

It's supper at my house. My husband and I both grew up in farming families so it's always been supper. Everyone I work with calls it dinner - but I never will do it - just can't - it will always be supper :)

I do like Fanged Bunny's suggestion though - eat dessert first:)

Breakfast is the first meal of the day
Lunch is second meal of the day
supper is last meal of the day

unless your going out and or having people over and then it is dinner

I never really thought of it before...

Here we have breakfast...lunch...and dinner.

Except on Sundays...and then, for some strange reason, the last meal is supper.

Go figure!

Thanks for a laugh! I wish I could homeschool with you!

Dinner is of course at dinner time, and supper refers to that weird meal that is neither lunch or dinner...that occurs at 2 on Sundays.

Dinner, technically, is use to describe the largest meal of the day. My grandmother always referred to lunch as dinner, since that was always the largest meal during her time. Supper, for her, was the last meal of the day, and was usually the leftovers from dinner.
Most people now have their largest meal in the evenings, so technically, this also can be called dinner. All depends on the time of day and the size of the meal.
So there's a little fact for you! :) You both can be right.

We have dinner. I grew up with dinner. My MIL tends to say "supper" probably not so much from living in the south for the past 15 years, but I'm guessing her own mom was old fashioned enough to call lunch "dinner" and the evening meal "supper."
I don't mean to sound condescending to others, but to me, supper is an informal meal, like eating leftovers in the kitchen. A freshly cooked meal in the dining room with candles and a bud vase of little flowers isn't supper, and that's how we eat every day, even if it's just pasta with jarred sauce.

Midday meal is lunch and nighttime meal is dinner.
All I really can say is you are hilarious and I wish I knew you in real life!

For me growing up in the north, the 2 terms were interchangeable and both referred to the same meal. When I moved to the south a few years back, I had 2 southern brothers explain to me that they are separate and unique meals, you can but do not always have both.

(I may mix up which comes first because it is still confusing to me but I think this is how it goes)

Supper is an optional mid afternoon meal. If you have supper and are still hungry you can also dinner. However, dinner is always the last meal of the day. If you skip supper and have dinner, you absolutely cannot decide to go back and have a supper.

Being the silly Yankee that I am, it never made sense to me but it is my understanding that it is a southern tradition of sorts.

It is and has always been dinner for me. Born & raised in NJ and I've always lived in the eastern part of the US. Supper is something they have in the south or out west or on Little House on the Prairie.

Lol...you are too funny. I am right there with you. Dinner is dinner and what the h-ll meal is supper?!? We only talked about supper when we didn't want our food mad pug to go nuts.

I use both, honestly. I was raised all over the place (military brat) and we picked up the culture wherever we were, it made life easier. So I know I use both. My husband uses dinner mostly. Our three kids use both as well. Whatever we call it, it's the meal between the end of school/work and bed time!

I grew up in a very rural part of Louisiana as did my husband, for us it is Dinner & Supper.

The way it was used in our house growing up, dinner was the main meal of the day, whether it happened at noon, in the afternoon, or in the evening. The other meal was either lunch, if it was at noon, or supper, if it was in the evening- either of those would be a smaller meal and less formal than dinner. So we might have breakfast, lunch and dinner, or we might have breakfast, dinner and supper. On holidays dinner was frequently in the afternoon and we just munched on that into the evening.

Lunch and dinner.
If supper is used, it's as a synonym for dinner--not a different circumstance.
That's the way we roll in Beverly Hills! Lol

We call it dinner.
D.i.n.n.e.r.
In my parts, that is what it is.
An evening meal. The main meal of the night/evening.
It is not "supper" nor an evening snack nor related to a soup.

And my Husband is European.
We call it dinner.
He calls it dinner.
My in-laws in Europe call it dinner.
I have never heard them call it supper.
Either.

But alas, it can be called whatever you want.
I mean, nowadays they say that dinner and supper are synonymous.
And it is also regional.
Maybe.
Or an adopted choice of lingo dialect usage because they like the sound of it and its affectation.

I have a friend, that calls an eraser a "rubber."
Whatever.
She is not English nor born in England.
She just visited there before a few times and had friends there and likes to say "rubber" because it makes her feel fancy.
And she'll then say how she's "lived" in England.
Yeah.
Right.

We have breakfast, lunch and dinner at our house but brunch on Sunday's after church.

We always called it supper growing up, but around here everybody calls it dinner. If I take the family out for an evening meal, I always make them thank me for "supper." They've almost gotten used to that after all these years. lol

Dinner. Always been dinner, always will be. :)

And lunch is lunch!

My deceased daddy used to say supper. I will use the term when I become a grandmother just to keep him alive in my mind.