Thread: supper & dinner

Please explain for me how using this words in real life.

I'm not quite sure what does Shurick mean by that, but since the question is asked anyway I'd like to add my own question to it.

It is breakfast when it's approximately a period of time between ???? a.m. and ???? a.m. (or p.m.)
It is lunch time when the hour hand is somewhere between ??? a.m. (or p.m.) and ??? p.m.
It's time for dinner when it's about ???? p.m. or later.
And, as I understand, the last chance to eat would be supper time when it's already ???? p.m. (or maybe even ??? a.m. next day).

In Russia people would say you're having a breakfast when you're eating between early morning till aprrox. 12 a.m. It's dinner time (well, I take the literal translation for the word 'dinner' = обед) from 12 a.m. till 5 or 6 p.m. And it's definetely supper (ужин) when you're having a meal after 7 p.m. So when I suggest to have a dinner, what time would it be?

Hi Shurick,

I understand your question perfectly and I have been asked this many times as depending upon where I have lived in the U.S. I have heard the main night time or lunch time meal called "Dinner" or "Supper."

I found this article, a little on the cute side, that explains it.

Right after this post... I am going to post another one about the difference between another common double term ...
soda vs. pop.

Let me know if this does not answer your question.... rockzmom

http://blogs.tech-recipes.com/shaman...ner-vs-supper/

Digital Streets
by ShamansTears
Dinner vs. Supper
August 2nd, 2007

It seems that lately I have been constantly exposed to the interchangeability of the words dinner and supper. Both are periodically used to describe the evening meal, however, I have found that some regions of the country use them differently. I remember being quite confused when I was a kid because I was very used to the three meals being breakfast, lunch, and dinner. But then we would visit my grandparents in Oklahoma and the names were changed slightly: breakfast, dinner, and supper. I couldn’t figure out why we were eating dinner for lunch and why was this new term, “supper” being used to describe dinner?

I have noticed some of the recent tweets from fellow tech-recipes bloggers have referred to these words, seamonkey420 used supper to describe the evening meal, while Q used the term dinner. Co-workers of mine also utilize the words differently. So I felt that it was time to look at this a little further (since obviously I couldn’t find anything better to do!). Unfortunately, my hope of finding a clear cut answer as to the correct phrase became quite clouded in the early stages of my research.

Wikipedia defines supper as: “the name for the evening meal in some dialects of English - ordinarily the last meal of the day, usually the meal that comes after dinner.” It further states that the term “is derived from the French souper, which is still used for this meal in Canadian French and sometimes in Belgian French. It is related to soup. It is also related to the German word for soup, Suppe.” Seems pretty simple, right? I thought so until I looked up dinner.

Wikipedia defines dinner as “the main meal of the day, usually eaten around the evening but some cultures have it in the afternoon. The meal normally consists of a combination of cooked animal or vegetarian proteins (meat, fish or soy), vegetables, and starch products like rice, noodles, or potatoes.” Here’s where things go horribly wrong. The word “dinner” comes from “the French word dîner, the ‘chief repast of the day’, ultimately from the Latin disiunare, which means to break fast (as in the English word “breakfast”). ” In fact the American Heritage Dictionary, states that the word “dinner” referred to breakfast in Middle English. I’m not liking this since I’d much rather have eggs instead of fish and rice for the first meal of the day.

So let me see if I get this straight, dinner isn’t lunch and dinner isn’t supper, dinner is breakfast??? And since supper is defined to be the meal that comes after dinner, then supper is lunch. So what is the evening meal called??

I think it’ll be easier to let people call it whatever they want and I’ll just look at my watch to decipher what meal they are referring to.

Originally Posted by Shurick

Please explain [s:1p60z865]for[/s:1p60z865] me how [s:1p60z865]using[/s:1p60z865] do you use [s:1p60z865]this[/s:1p60z865] these words in real life.

The Great Pop vs. Soda Controversy

Using the World Wide Web to gather and process data from across English-speaking North America, I intend to plot the regional variations in the use of the terms "Pop" and "Soda" to describe carbonated soft drinks

http://popvssoda.com:2998/

http://popvssoda.com:2998/stats/ALL.html

In our household... it's is soda (yet only Hubby drinks the stuff)

Originally Posted by Оля

Originally Posted by Shurick

Please explain [s:1c2s51fq]for[/s:1c2s51fq] me how [s:1c2s51fq]using[/s:1c2s51fq] do you use [s:1c2s51fq]this[/s:1c2s51fq] these words in real life.

Okay, now when I read the way you rewrote it, it sounds odd to me.

Maybe... Would you please explain to me how do you use these words in everyday life?

Or ... the better question might have been...

Is there a difference between dinner and supper and if so, why do some people say dinner and others supper for the same thing?

But that is a bit wordy I admit.

Originally Posted by rockzmom

Okay, now when I read the way you rewrote it, it sounds odd to me.

Oh, so "how using" did not sound odd to you?

Originally Posted by Оля

Originally Posted by rockzmom

Okay, now when I read the way you rewrote it, it sounds odd to me.

Oh, so "how using" did not sound odd to you?

Just your correction brought to light the oddness of it all together in an even greater oddness... does that make sense?

At the "this" should have been changed to "these." That was a good catch as well.

I think it was the taking out the "for" that caught my ear. When I said it my head... "Please explain me how" ... it just sounded off for me, and caught me up short and made me stop and think... how would I write this sentence????

When you say it, "Please explain me how".. does it sound odd to you or natural? Just asking out of curiosity only.

Originally Posted by rockzmom

When you say it, "Please explain me how".. does it sound odd to you or natural?

Oh, I have stricken out "for", but forgotten to put "to"...

Is "Please explain to me how" fine?

Originally Posted by Оля

Originally Posted by rockzmom

When you say it, "Please explain me how".. does it sound odd to you or natural?

Oh, I have stricken out "for", but forgotten to put "to"...

Is "Please explain to me how" fine?

YES!!!!!!!!!!!!! That would have done it for me! A++++++++

supper vs dinner vs diner:

(based on a northeast american perspective)
supper - an informal version of "dinner", meaning the evening meal. I might say "i'll see you at home for supper", but if we were going out to a restaurant i would say "let's go out for dinner tonight". Of course, it doesn't sound that weird to say "let's go out for supper tonight", ...

And of course, don't confuse dinner with a diner (a place to have dinner). The same goes for dessert vs. desert. The way i remember both words is that you always want "more" food, so the word with "more" letters in the middle is related to the act of eating.

Times:
breakfast=morning, before noon?
lunch=11am or after?
dinner=5pm or after?

There is also brunch, which is a late breakfast, which may also have some lunch food...

So let me see if I get this straight, dinner isn’t lunch and dinner isn’t supper, dinner is breakfast???

For some reason, this fragment drove me completely out of balance.

Originally Posted by Ramil

So let me see if I get this straight, dinner isn’t lunch and dinner isn’t supper, dinner is breakfast???

For some reason, this fragment drove me completely out of balance.

That's why you can always just revert back to the old standby of "Let's grab us some grub and a few beers!"

what about brunch?

Originally Posted by sperk

what about brunch?

Sperk,

Brunch is a meal typically eaten on the weekends anytime between 10:00 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. Some places it is served as a buffet style, while others you order specific items off the menu. The food is a combination of both breakfast food and lunch food, which for me is great because I am NOT fond of most breakfast foods!!! Some places will also serve Champagne Mimosa or Bloody Mary.

A number of families will go out as a group with say their grandparents or other family members. We go out with my mom usually as she is the only family member near us.

Restaurants can make a big fancy deal about this or can be down to earth; it is all your choice and style.

Here is a link to an article from a local upscale magazine that talks about some restaurants (some VERY upscale ones costing as much as $150 for TWO people) and how they do brunch http://www.washingtonian.com/article...ides/4066.html

But you can always go to other places costing WAY less, like Golden Coral where the cost is about $6 for kids and $11 for adults and eat all that you want!!!! http://www.goldencorral.com/

From an English point of view (the country not the language) dinner would be the main large evening meal.

I don't hear supper being used very often, but it may be used to describe a small informal evening meal either taking the place of dinner, or as an extra 'mini' meal later in the evening. For example my family may eat dinner earlier in the evening than they normally do in order to go out, but then will eat supper when they return later in the evening.


I would say

04:00am- 11:00am breakfast
11:30-13:30 brunch (usually a social thing in the weekend)
12:00midday - 14:30 lunch
17:30-20:30 dinner (may be later)
17:30-00:00 supper

It confuses me and English is my native language. I'd say just assume dinner==supper but dinner usually means more food!

I'll try to tell about Russian traditional meals.

usually:
05:00am- 11:00am (or just a first meal of the day) - "Завтрак"
12:00midday - 15:00 (or second big meal, usually about 13:00-14:00) - "Обед"
17:30-20:30 (or last meal of the day) - "Ужин"

not often we use word "Полдник" - as far as I know, its a meal in school (children camps etc) between завтрак and обед (about 11:00am ?)

Usually we have завтрак at home, before go to work or something like this. Fry eggs and cup of tee/coffee at 7am for example.
In the middle of the work time we usually have a обеденный перерыв (break for обед), and usually its a big meal (soup, fried potatoes with meat, stewed fruit - for example)
Third and last serious meal we can have at the home after work, or in some place like restoraunt, its dependes of life style of each person. But traditionaly we call this meal ужин (поужинать в ресторане, поужинать дома, поужинать в гостях).

So, now you see, that usually завтрак = breakfast
but often обед or ужин its not a dinner! Becouse обед or ужин its not a main meal.
Ужин it is a meal like a supper (but unlike a supper, ужин is a common word)

ps. In the most of Russian-English dictionares you can find that dinner translated like обед, and supper like ужин.
Now you know why I asked my question about it.

Originally Posted by Shurick

Becouse обед or ужин its not a main meal.

Er.. How comes? Isn't "обед" supposed to be a main meal (which traditionally includes 3 courses)???
Of course most people who have to work have a light "обед" (dinner) and more square "ужин" (dinner), but that's a matter of working schedule.

not often we use word "Полдник" - as far as I know,

In reality the "Полдник" is between lunch and dinner, something about 16:00. It usually consists of a drink (juice, tea, yogurt-"Кефир") and some sweet (cake, bun, fancy cake). This meal is most close to British 5-o'clock tea.

Originally Posted by CoffeeCup

not often we use word "Полдник" - as far as I know,

In reality the "Полдник" is between lunch and dinner, something about 16:00. It usually consists of a drink (juice, tea, yogurt-"Кефир") and some sweet (cake, bun, fancy cake). This meal is most close to British 5-o'clock tea.

Would that be similar to a "snack" like my girls would eat when they come home from school? Something to tide them over until dinner time (our main big meal of the day).

In the '50s and '60s one would always come home to a plate of freshly made, just out of the oven, be careful or they will scorch your fingers and burn your tongue, warm gooey cookies and a nice ice cold glass of milk.

Ahhhhh. I think I will make some today. Anyone care to join us? They should be done about 2:30.