h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

RF sounds more like an Ankh-Morpokian wizard to me. They serve those meals at UU, I'll swear.

TRiG.

I didn't know you were that posh, azahar.

TRiG.

Which word you use is traditionally governed by your class and your region so there is no 'right' answer.

For what it's worth, I think that in our 21st-century-socially-and-geographically-mobile () society, it is more about the connotations of the words; I would never take someone out for a candle-lit tea!

Lunch (how many people say luncheon? and, come to think of it, can one still buy luncheon vouchers?!) is fairly recognisable as a middle-of-the-day meal, hot or cold. Supper, when I was a kid, was a bowl of cereal before bed but, nowadays, I wouldn't even think to class it as a meal. Supper, to me, is now a light, cosy meal, taken after the need for dinner has passed- possibly in a romantic sense or perhaps when arriving at someone's house after a long journey. I used to work early shifts in a warehouse and my 'lunch' break was at 10 o'clock and usually consisted of breakfast items (toast, cereal, bacon, eggs, &c.) and I thought of it as breakfast. Brunch is for people who didn't eat enough for breakfast, aren't going to have lunch or aren't prepared to admit that they're just having a late breakfast. I love midday breakfasts in a greasy-spoon with my mates on a sunday.

Sorry to ramble, and I haven't covered all the meals, but it is the connotations that I like. I hate eggs (well, egg whites- see how do you like your eggs? thread) but the words "scrambled eggs" *sound* delicious!

Anyhow, I'm off to eat my

RF, you forgot the 3am Fridge Raid.

>> RF, you forgot the 3am Fridge Raid. <<

Nah, I don't do that any more.

I'm on a diet, see?

RF

That might be so RF, but you can't just remove it from the list for the rest of us gluttons. If you do I'll waste away so much I could be a model! (apart from the looks, the encroaching baldness, the age, the attitude, and the fact that I'll never look sexy in a dress )

and (tp - it's your tagline which has prompted this) RF totally forgot to mention in-between snacks of Chocolate Body Paint

Of course the midday meal is Lunch.

If it weren't then we'd have to call that midmorning (usually hungover Sunday morning) first meal of the day Brinner instead of Brunch....just doesn't work for me that!

I never call Dinner (evening meal) Tea either. Imagine going out for a date and describing it as going out for a romantic tea!

A Tea Date...A Dinner Date. You decide!

Where I grew up in Canada it was always Breakfast/Lunch/Supper. Dinner was a supposedly posh word that people used to describe a special supper or lunch (ie. Christmas dinner).

az

I grew up in Yorkshire and always used to call the midday meal dinner, and the evening meal tea, regardless of what those meals actually comprise (hot/cold/whatever).

These days, having lived in the South and Midlands for nigh on ten years (ten years?! ), what I call them really does vary depending on how awake I am and who's around me. My husband is from Dorset, so habitually uses lunch and dinner.... though I've got him calling the evening meal tea sometimes .

As long as the people you're with understand you, it doesn't really matter, does it?

Must admit we've never used supper to descibe any kind of evening meal, though - my parents used to have 'afters', which was basically cake or something else sweet, at about 8pm.

Hhhmmm. I grew up in the north, our family terminology for meals were breakfast, lunch and dinner. Tea was either a drink, or a mid-afternoon 'high tea' affair, with sandwiches and petit fours etc. Supper was whatever you had after dinner. Except if going out to a restaurant, then we'd be going out for dinner. Although, if I'd gone out to play with friends etc, my mum always told me I had to be back at tea time, which was really dinner time, because tea time would have been 3.30-4pm ish, where as dinner time is more around your 5-6pm mark.

<>

Actually that would be 'afternoon tea'.

Blummin' pernickety pants!

It was high tea if we were having it in place of dinner, and afternoon tea if not, with the menu adapted as befitting.

Fair enough, though High Tea should never be served before 6pm.

It rarely was. High tea was really just my mother's way of getting out of doing any cooking and being a pretentious snob at the same time. Mind, she was from Edinburgh.

Sho,

I don't regard Choccy body paint to be a snack, it's more an immediate energy source while doing energetic exercise. A bit like lucozade for a jogger. Just a lot more fun.

I should imagine that the nutritional value of chocolate body paint is negligable.

Now, Haagen-Dasz Pralines and Cream is good... it has sugar, fat and protien all of which are essential for keeping energy levels up during strenuous activity.

Beds are not for eating!

OK, I don't mind breakfast in bed after some vigorous morning exercise though

>> where as dinner time is more around your 5-6pm mark <<

So what am I eating at 8:30pm?

RF

>>So what am I eating at 8:30pm?<<



Well, your dinner. Unless you've already had your main evening meal, in which case you'll be having your supper. Or maybe a snack, if you also intend to have supper later.