4 ms·

Thanks, that was very informative. I was always told that dinner (from "dine") is the main meal of the day. So if you have a 'fancy' afternoon meal that can be

Thanks, that was very informative. I was always told that dinner (from "dine") is the main meal of the day. So if you have a 'fancy' afternoon meal that can be your dinner (e.g. we usually do Christmas dinner between 3 and 4). I wonder if HN knows of a linguistic map for meal names, it appears that these words shift meaning a lot. EDIT: I thought this was interesting -- "Harvard's Dialect Survey had the question, 'What is the distinction between dinner and supper?' Here's the geographic distribution of their results from 10,661 American respondents" https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/22446/lunch-vs-dinner-vs-supper-times-and-meanings https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/22446/lunch-vs-d...

pbhjpbhj 9y ago
I don't think it's as easy as geography, it depends on your parents upbringing too. One other great British-English question is "what do you call an individually portioned baked bread article" ... roll, barm, bap, cob, ...
- nicky0 9y ago
  Breadcake
- teh_klev 9y ago
  Scottish git here....rolls (or maybe morning rolls if posh). But where I'm from in Scotland you'd ask for "softies" otherwise you'd get a slightly harder well-fired roll if there was a choice.
- stordoff 9y ago
  Or "How do you pronounce 'scone'?"
somewhatoff 9y ago
The slightly snooty Daily Telegraph style guide: "Christmas lunch is what most of our readers would eat, not Christmas dinner. Use the latter only if referring specifically to an evening meal." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/about-us/style-book/1435309/Telegraph-style-book-Cc.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/about-us/style-book/143530...
- signal11 9y ago
  (Being slightly facetious) This confirms my suspicion that the Telegraph caters to a very small minority: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Christmas+lunch%2CChristmas+dinner&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2CChristmas%20lunch%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2CChristmas%20dinner%3B%2Cc0 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Christmas+lunc... Also this: https://trends.google.co.uk/trends/explore?q=Christmas%20lunch,Christmas%20dinner https://trends.google.co.uk/trends/explore?q=Christmas%20lun...
- stordoff 9y ago
  Even in Southern England (Cambridge), I don't think I've ever heard the phrase "Christmas lunch".
- buckminster 9y ago
  If you're ready for Christmas dinner at lunchtime there was something wrong with Christmas breakfast.
cfv 9y ago
I find this particular stuff fascinating. In spanish you have 3 distinct meals, 'desayuno' 'almuerzo' and 'cena' mapping strictly to a moment of the day, more or less 'breakfast' 'lunch' and 'dinner', with the option of a merienda (roughly 'tea' but usually just sweet food like cookies or some such) between lunch and dinner. Each of this happens on a specific moment of the day (morning, noon, the optional afternoon thing and well into nighttime). Are there other languages/dialects where the word maps the importance of the meal instead of the actual time it is consumed?

pbhjpbhj 9y ago

I don't think it's as easy as geography, it depends on your parents upbringing too. One other great British-English question is "what do you call an individually portioned baked bread article" ... roll, barm, bap, cob, ...

nicky0 9y ago
Breadcake
teh_klev 9y ago
Scottish git here....rolls (or maybe morning rolls if posh). But where I'm from in Scotland you'd ask for "softies" otherwise you'd get a slightly harder well-fired roll if there was a choice.
stordoff 9y ago
Or "How do you pronounce 'scone'?"

somewhatoff 9y ago

The slightly snooty Daily Telegraph style guide: "Christmas lunch is what most of our readers would eat, not Christmas dinner. Use the latter only if referring specifically to an evening meal." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/about-us/style-book/1435309/Telegraph-style-book-Cc.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/about-us/style-book/143530...

signal11 9y ago
(Being slightly facetious) This confirms my suspicion that the Telegraph caters to a very small minority: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Christmas+lunch%2CChristmas+dinner&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2CChristmas%20lunch%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2CChristmas%20dinner%3B%2Cc0 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Christmas+lunc... Also this: https://trends.google.co.uk/trends/explore?q=Christmas%20lunch,Christmas%20dinner https://trends.google.co.uk/trends/explore?q=Christmas%20lun...
stordoff 9y ago
Even in Southern England (Cambridge), I don't think I've ever heard the phrase "Christmas lunch".
buckminster 9y ago
If you're ready for Christmas dinner at lunchtime there was something wrong with Christmas breakfast.

cfv 9y ago

I find this particular stuff fascinating. In spanish you have 3 distinct meals, 'desayuno' 'almuerzo' and 'cena' mapping strictly to a moment of the day, more or less 'breakfast' 'lunch' and 'dinner', with the option of a merienda (roughly 'tea' but usually just sweet food like cookies or some such) between lunch and dinner. Each of this happens on a specific moment of the day (morning, noon, the optional afternoon thing and well into nighttime). Are there other languages/dialects where the word maps the importance of the meal instead of the actual time it is consumed?