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Explanation if any of our foreign cousins want it.
Tea, short for tea time.
In the South you used to (and still do) have the following three meals a day:
Breakfast, lunch, dinner.
In the North, however…
Breakfast, dinner, tea.
Both might tie the end of the day off with supper too. Brunch is for the jobless middle class and wandered into the conversation with yuppies in the 80s.
There’s also a tea break, which is usually just a cup (or mug if you are a ruffian) of tea. Not to be confused with tea time, where you might reasonably expect to eat your dinner.
Then there’s high tea, which yes, features tea. Often a pot and almost never a mug. It frequently comes with anemic sandwiches and perhaps a scone.
I hope that clears things up.
In the South you used to (and still do) have the following three meals a day:
Breakfast, lunch, dinner.
In the North, however…
Breakfast, dinner, tea.
In the South, we sometimes have “breakfast, dinner, supper” (especially in rural areas; city folks are more likely to have “breakfast, lunch, dinner”) and our tea definitely has ice and a fuckton of sugar in it.
Then there’s high tea, which yes, features tea. Often a pot and almost never a mug. It frequently comes with anemic sandwiches and perhaps a scone.
High tea is/was the working class term for an evening meal as it was had at the table, and it would usually include cooked meat.
Afternoon tea is the posh one in the afternoon with the cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off.
Interestingly, in Canada “high tea” is a fancy afternoon tea with little sandwiches and desserts. Often something you can book at posh hotels like Fairmonts.
I’ve seen places here mix them up too, it’s not uncommon.
If you want to be a pedant or just find this sort of thing amusing, you could send the hotel restaurant a link to the wikipedia page.
Ah Britain, sailing the high teas
Dinner, as the main meal, used to be closer to midday in agrarian times, with the evening meal being a light supper. Only the industrial revolution, with workers spending most of the working day in the workplace, changed this.
Where my family’s from, that naming convention is still used.
Breakfast - first meal of the day
Dinner - midday meal
Supper - evening meal
Lunch - a small snack with no specific time
Interestingly most Psych units I’ve worked (US) serve (roughly timed):
0800 - breakfast
- along with a lightly caffeinated coffee or tea, the only caffeine routinely served
1200 - lunch
1700 - dinner
2000 - snack
- usually prepackaged chips and crackers, sometimes cookies or ice cream. The long stay hospital gave the patients 25¢ for every group they attended and they could order nicer stuff from the staff member who made the weekly Walmart trip.
I hope that clears things up.
Not really. You had me in the first half, tho.
I somehow feel more informed and more confused at the same time.
You can also have “breakfast, lunch and tea”, or breakfast, dinner and dinner".
What about second breakfast?
10 o’clock tea and elevenses could both reasonably fit the bill here I feel.
i did not expect british diogenes
I guess the argument could be made that chicken soup is a tea
British people:
There also was a contemporary nuncheon “light mid-day meal,” from noon + Middle English schench “drink.”
https://www.etymonline.com/word/lunch
It’s fucking beverage all the way down in English.
Bonus:
BRIBE. Lunch’d O dear! Permit me, my dear Mrs. Prattle, to refresh my sponge, upon the honey dew that clings to your ravishing pouters. O! Mrs. Prattle, this shall be my lunch.
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Haha, wow! People in different cultures have different words for different things!
yes and we’re celebrating that here. it’s very human and expands people’s horizons.
It was a subtle hint to request tea be made by the person already using the oven/stove.
We also say “tea” when referring to gossip.
