When I was a little lad, dinner was what we ate around midday and lunch was something that was packed and carried, what we might call a packed lunch nowadays. I can remember my mother saying, when I was going out for the day with the Cubs, that she would pack me a lunch for my dinner. The evening meal was always called teatime in our house. Quoting my mother again, I remember her describing our (Christmas-only) habit of delaying the main meal as "We're having our dinner at teatime". For working men, that packed meal could also be "snap" (often in a "snap tin"icon_wink.gif or "bait" (often in a "bait box"icon_wink.gif. This item from the BBC seems to back up the (generally) Northern habit of terming the midday meal as "dinner". www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20243692 What do you call it?

When I was a little lad, dinner was what we ate around midday and lunch was something that was packed and carried, what we might call a packed lunch nowadays. I can remember my mother saying, when I was going out for the day with the Cubs, that she would pack me a lunch for my dinner. The evening meal was always called teatime in our house. Quoting my mother again, I remember her describing our (Christmas-only) habit of delaying the main meal as "We're having our dinner at teatime". For working men, that packed meal could also be "snap" (often in a "snap tin"icon_wink.gif or "bait" (often in a "bait box"icon_wink.gif. This item from the BBC seems to back up the (generally) Northern habit of terming the midday meal as "dinner". www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20243692 What do you call it?

Dinner at dinnertime. Tea at teatime.

Its not "dinner", its "me dinner", likewise its "me tea".

Although when I was at Junior School we had a lad who's dad was from East Yorkshire, the bit that comes just after the A1 but not quite as far as Hull, and he called it "us tea".

All very correct too.
Nowt wrong wi' any of that.

what he said, plus supper at supper time. Usually a cup of tea and some choccy biscuits when i was a kid, then it became a donner kebab and now is some warm milk.

always been dinner time for me

but lunch seems to be taking over!

It's lunch and dinner pretty much everywhere in the world apart from the M62 corridor.

Quote ="El Barbudo"When I was a little lad, dinner was what we ate around midday and lunch was something that was packed and carried, what we might call a packed lunch nowadays. I can remember my mother saying, when I was going out for the day with the Cubs, that she would pack me a lunch for my dinner. The evening meal was always called teatime in our house. Quoting my mother again, I remember her describing our (Christmas-only) habit of delaying the main meal as "We're having our dinner at teatime". For working men, that packed meal could also be "snap" (often in a "snap tin"icon_wink.gif or "bait" (often in a "bait box"icon_wink.gif. This item from the BBC seems to back up the (generally) Northern habit of terming the midday meal as "dinner". www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20243692 What do you call it?'" Same as but my dad's work dinner was called jackbit.

Quote ="El Barbudo"When I was a little lad, dinner was what we ate around midday and lunch was something that was packed and carried, what we might call a packed lunch nowadays. I can remember my mother saying, when I was going out for the day with the Cubs, that she would pack me a lunch for my dinner. The evening meal was always called teatime in our house. Quoting my mother again, I remember her describing our (Christmas-only) habit of delaying the main meal as "We're having our dinner at teatime". For working men, that packed meal could also be "snap" (often in a "snap tin"icon_wink.gif or "bait" (often in a "bait box"icon_wink.gif. This item from the BBC seems to back up the (generally) Northern habit of terming the midday meal as "dinner". www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20243692 What do you call it?'" Same as but my dad's work dinner was called jackbit.

I've heard that word.
Where was this ?

Wigan. Don't know were the term originated and I've never heard it used anywhere else but Wigan.

I lived up north (Wigan) until I was 23 and it was always Dinner and Tea. I've lived in the West Mids/Warwickshire for 10 years now so it's become Lunch and Dinner.



Mind you, they also call s batches. (Hahaha, it would appear I can't say b@rmcake!)

In response to jackbit - I've always thought it was a generic northern term for a hearty snack in between meals.

Coming from Leigh I've heard the word quite a bit. However, it's always in the context of "Do you know what jackbit means?"

I've never heard anyone actually say I'm having my jackbit.

Nope. Every school in the country that provides meals provides "school dinners". I've never heard of one providing "school lunches"

The kids that paid have always taken their dinner money to school, never their lunch money.

Even that southern jessy Jamie Oliver knows it's dinners - [urlhttp://www.jamieoliver.com/school-dinners[/url

I don't think it is dinner in any other country as they speak different languages so whatever the word is, "dinner" would not be it. Unless you count American "English", which I don't really, and they I think do or did have a school lunch program, but the cursed Americans are responsible for most of the abominations to the mother tongue, and this confusion is probably just one more confusion-creating example.

The origins of "lunch" are clearly in the English invention of "luncheon", and that was traditionally a light "in-between" meal, originally taken by ladies, and certainly no sort of a main meal.

A school dinner has always traditionally been a 3 course meal, certainly no less than a hot main course, and a pudding (sorry - "dessert"icon_wink.gif. If at dinnertime someone (including schoolkids) are not having dinner (eg going on a school trip) they may well take a "packed lunch". That may be like a sandwich, crisps,a biscuit or an apple, maybe a carton of juice, basically light and portable snack food. Everyone knows what (in the context of food) a "lunchbox" is.

Schoolchildren might have dinner while at school, but once they start work, they might just have lunch ie a sandwich or a pasty or something, so it is no longer dinner, because it's not a "dinner". Certainly in Yorkshire, though, your big meal in the evening is your "tea", which is a complete change from what began life as "afternoon tea". So a typical Yorkshireman may have a breakfast early doors, and is likely to use "me dinner" interchangeably with "me lunch", but he will always be off home for 'is tea - and never off home for 'is dinner unless at dinnertime.

If I say I'll meet you "at dinnertime" - when would you expect me to arrive?

Been in Manchester this week and they have dinnor
.

This forum has discussed this before.
Definitely pudding ... seeing as dessert is the fruit and suchlke that comes [uafter[/u the pudding.

I'm confused. Surely the fruit is IN the pudding, under the crumble and surrounded by the custard? What else is it for?

Its Brekkie, Dinner and Tea.

Eric Pickles has 'em all at breakfast, dinner and tea (probably supper for that matter too)

Dinner = Main meal of day,
so

Mon - Fri => Dinner in the evening, Lunch during day
Sat/Sun => Dinner during Day => Tea in the evening.

And yet the midday break is the lunch break. And the time at which school dinners are eaten is referred to as lunchtime.


Both terms are used. The latter is now the more common judging by my kids and their friends.


You're aware that foreign languages get translated into English, yes? Guess what the English translation for the midday meal is.


Words and their usage change over time. The question asked was not about the origin of the word, but about usage.


Informative and yet utterly irrelevant.


Did you miss the bit about the M62 corridor?

And outside of that corridor employees have a lunch break, which at larger companies often incorporates hot meals of more than one course.


Late evening. As would my colleagues in Europe. And the USA. Granted I have no direct experience further afield.

That's pretty widely applicable, but how often have you seen a pub or restaurant advertise a Sunday Dinner?

Come to that, how often have you seen [iany[/i eatery offer a midday 'Dinner Menu'?

Was pretty much the same when I lived in North Devon, so I don't think it is limited to the M62 corridor.

Anyone else familiar with the term "putting-up"? In my family this was always referred to as the packed lunch as well as the act of making the packed lunch: "I've got the putting-up to do.", "Have you got your putting-up?".


We always had Sunday dinner at about 2 0'clock on a Sunday afternoon, same with Christmas dinner.

2 o'clock was pretty much universal I think as the Sunday pub opening times were 12noon 'till 2pm in the good old days when men (and their sons) went to the pub and the woman stayed in the house and cooked for them, and woe betide her if it wasn't on the table at 2.15 when they walked in the house.

Ah, yes ... but we must remember that eateries are not the best source of correct language (Barbudo's Menu Rule states that all menus contain at least one spelling mostake, for example), plus they like to use obscure words wherever possible ... even if they don't know what they mean (I saw pithivier on a menu once and asked what it was and the waiter had to go away and ask ... even then, it was wrong), so I don't think we should use them as exemplars of terminology.
If we did, we wouldn't say "fried" we'd say "pan fried" ... and just ask Cod'ead about Bass.

Yes, "Snap" was put up ... as in "I'm putting his snap up".

But it wouldn't have been "Have you got your put[uting[/u-up?" in my experience, rather it would have been "Have you got your put-up?"... but that could be a small regional variation.