I have just been listening over breakfast to talk about how the words we use tell folk exactly where in the country we originate. The most obvious one is what we call the evening meal. Where I come from (Lincolnshire) we had breakfast, dinner, tea and supper. Although my father took sandwiches for his mid-day meal we (my mother and I) had our 'normal' cooked dinner (that is until I had school dinners) and my father's dinner was put on a plate. Just before he came in at the end of his working day my mother would put his plate, covered by another plate, over a pan of boiling water to warm up (no microwaves in those days). My mother and I would have tea at the same time - maybe something on toast like eggs from our hens, or home made bread and jam, or maybe salad from the garden. Supper would just be a milky drink with a biscuit. Listening to the programme this morning there were so many variations to this - the most obvious was instead of breakfast, dinner, tea and supper it would be breakfast, lunch, and either dinner or supper, depending on how posh you were.
Now apparently, as people move around the country more and social boundaries loosen a bit, these are all becoming more blurred.
Another instance is the word 'beck', which we use round here. I called it a 'stream' before coming up here, but in some areas it is a 'rill' and there are dozens of names for these small water courses.
Language is fascinating but social mobility and the way we now often live miles from where we were born means that I suppose eventually all these variations will die out - as will so many of our customs. At our village coffee morning this morning, looking round the village hall, so many people were newcomers (offcumduns) - very few 'native' villagers are left and how happy the newcomers are to live in such a lovely village where the few that are left make the newcomers feel so welcome.
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I wonder when supper fell out of favour we never eat supper and I don't think generally people do anymore , but my grandparents all ate supper and my step grandmother was known to eat a huge supper .
You have tried to explain the times and names to me before but I still can't wrap my mind around it all.
We have breakfast, lunch and dinner. You have supper early then tea and then... but I like hearing all the words and meaning.
cheers, parsnip
We used the word 'supper' in my house when I was a child in the 70s. At some point, 'supper' was replaced by 'dinner'.
'Hamper' has been largely replaced by 'basket'. A 'wastepaper basket' doesn't seem to exist at all these days.
I always find the different words used for things quite interesting. Of course there are more differences between countries. Here in the US we have differences related to parts of the country. I grew up in the south and we had breakfast, lunch and supper. The only difference in that now (in the midwest) is that we say dinner in place of supper. I love hearing all the phrases used from around the world.
I was born in West Yorkshire and to us it was breakfast, dinner, tea and supper. Now we have breakfast, lunch, dinner and supper. My daughter who was born in Northampton but grew up mostly in Devon calls dinner/lunch/tea something different to us, but I can't remember what and at times it does get confusing as to which meal she is referring to.
To me a beck is like a little stream.
Going back to a few posts ago, you said you didn't know how to contact me. Did you want to contact me, or did you want to know if I had a blog? I'm afraid I haven't 'dipped my toe' nor become brave enough to start a blog just yet.
I am from West Yorkshire also. But I honestly cannot remember what was said when I was a child. I have always since growing up said Breakfast lunch and dinner. Now in Scotland a stream is a Burn. Walls are dykes. Fields are parks. A young girl is a Quine. Young man a Loon. Fascinating.
I'm a dinner at 12 tea at 5 kind of guy
Exactly as we named meals when I was a youngster, though your father's sandwiches would have been called his "dockey". Streams are brooks around here, though some are called rivers despite being narrow enough for jumping across for those just a little more agile than me! My parents, one from London and one from Cambridgeshire would have many inconclusive discussions about what was meant by "next Monday", my father always insisting that it meant the next Monday on the calendar even if that meant it was tomorrow, while my mum was equally certain that "next Monday" referred to the Monday of the next week.
I find the regional words for various things quite fascinating. In my youth I had school dinners at lunch time but my father had his dinner in the evening when he came home from work. I only remember supper during the war years when it was usually a warm drink before bedtime - perhaps cocoa or a cup of soup.
So many variations. Jill's a wall being a dyke fascinates me as a dyke in Lincolnshire where I come from originally is what we call a beck up here.
Joan (Devon) I just wanted to answer your answer to me. Go on - jump in and get
yourself a blog set up. It is great fun communicating all round the world.
Thanks to you all.
We are pegged at once as Akron, Ohio natives if we say Devil Strip. That is the piece of land between a street and sidewalk, generally with grass, and called Tree Lawn by most other people.
`Windrow` is my most unfavourite word at the moment. It`s the wall of snow and ice that the snowplow deposits at the end of your driveway.
Hate, hate, windrows, they create more hard and heavy shoveling!! Originally from Manchester we had breakfast, dinner (school dinner) tea and supper just before bed. Now in W. Canada we have breakfast, lunch and supper, but some people do say dinner. Often hear people refer to a late night snack as lunch!!
This is very interesting. It's breakfast, lunch, and supper here. Supper is generally your big meal. I couldn't imagine supper just being a drink. Sometimes people called supper "dinner", but it's the same thing. However, growing up, at the farm, dinner was the noon meal which was usually quite a big meal being as the men were already up since about 5:00 a.m., so would need sustenance by around noon. Because they had to go out and do the evening milking, supper would be a bit lighter. -Jenn
Here in central Pennsylvania, I grew up having breakfast, dinner, and supper, the main meal. Now it's breakfast, lunch, and either supper, or dinner if you're dining out. A stream is a creek, pronounced "crick." When I was a child, sometimes supper was a one thing meal. When strawberries were in season we'd have strawberry shortcake (a biscuit type cake, topped with sweetened berries and milk in a bowl.) When sweet corn was ready, we'd have "roastin' ears", corn on the cob with lots of butter. How it got that name I have no idea, as the corn was boiled, not roasted. In the fall we'd have apple dumplings in a bowl with milk poured over. They were pared and cored apples filled with cinnamon, sugar, and a bit of butter, wrapped in pie dough and baked. That just sparked a memory - when I was married at 19 to a man from another part of the country, I prepared strawberry shortcake for supper and listened to a tirade about that not being a proper meal! I never did that again. I listened to lots of tirades from that man...
Breakfast Lunch and Supper here Pat... My family has moved around the country alot but in our house it was always so.. I call it a creek ... where i live now some may call it a 'crick'Always love to read a post like this from you Pat and all the comments you get! Hugs! deb
Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner/Supper here. The only word I use from my past, that baffles others, is 'Twitten', which means a narrow passageway. Very Sussex/Surrey.
Offcumdun? That's the first time I've heard that expression although that's exactly what I am/was.
Cro - never heard that one.
Ruth -apple dumplings!! How my mouth is watering as I write this.
Janice and Chris - never heard that word windrow before - it is a new one on me.
Thanks for your comments.
Like Jill I have to remember our stream in Scotland by the cottage is a burn or I get blank looks. We were a breakfast, dinner, tea family but from living down south for a while I now refer to the midday meal as lunch.
Breakfast, lunch and tea here in the West Country - though I do have my lunch at dinner-time (1.00pm). The main meal for me is tea. We have certain words here which definitely mark you out as from the West Country to the rest of the UK - 'daps' instead of 'plimsolls' is probably the most famous, but we also say snow is 'pitching' rather than 'settling', you can be 'shrammed' with the cold, and if you fall over and take off the top layer of skin then you've 'scraged' yourself or have a 'scrage'.
Reading the comments mentioning other sayings that are peculiar to their region, I remembered one that I suppose is a Yorkshire one. It is 'starving' for being cold. Have you heard that? My husband who is from Hampshire had never heard of this and thought a guest of my Mums was very rude when she said this and he naturally thought she meant hungry.
Here on Sheppey the old grazing fields are full of the ant hills of the Yellow Field ants, they have always been known locally to the older generation of farmers as Emmet Casts - Emmet being another name for ants.
Nowadays, people are diet conscious , so the terms breakfast/lunch/dinner/supper have been replaced with calories/carbs/protein/fiber:).
Here in Australia most of us call your streams creeks. I think there’s probably quite a variation in how meals are named as people’s families originate in so many different countries. We don’t have school dinners generally, so I’ve only heard the midday meal called dinner at Christmas. My family has breakfast, lunch and tea (or dinner if eating out or having guests). Supper woul be seen as a late option, perhaps after some evening entertainment, but many would not have supper.
A small, often dry 'creek' across the road here - but I wish it was more of a babbling 'brook' such as up in the mountains.
Growing up in Devon it was breakfast, lunch (except at school when it was those often tasteless 'school dinners' with so many steamed puddings such as 'Spotted Dick'), and tea or high tea. Here in the US, breakfast, lunch, supper/dinner, though our normal days we have just a late breakfast around 10 AM and supper at 6 PM, with perhaps a cup of tea and a cookie (biscuit) in mid afternoon.
What a wonderful place you must live in.
Yes, breakfast, lunch, and dinner here. :)
Growing up I had breakfast (sometimes hot, sometimes cold cereal), brought my sandwich llunch to school, and at night we all had our supper. Sundays though we had a cooked breakfast after church and then dinner at 1 or 2. Later in the evening it might be a bit more of the leftover dessert. I tend to think of supper as a more casual meal and dinner fancier - class distinctions? But while the main meal has been in the evening most of my life, we two are now tending to have a bigger meal midday even though I still call what we eat at night our dinner.
A stream is a creek if it's in the country but for my parents in Pennsylvania it was a 'crik.' If they said that, they embarrassed me.
So much fun to share our regionalisms. Others have mentioned Pennsylvania CREEK. CRICK was a lower class pronunciation where I'm from (Philadelphia). We say SODA for a sweet carbonated drink and HOAGIE for a sandwich of cheese and lunchmeats on a long roll, which others call a SUB.
In our world, it was always breakfast, lunch, dinner. Nothing was served or expected after dinner unless you snuck into the kitchen and took a couple of cookies up to your room.
To me, regional pronunciations are more fascinating still. In Philadelphia DAD, HAD, SAD, LAD rhyme with each other but not with MAD or BAD. But MAD has the same /a/ sound as MAN, BAN, CAN (meaning tin). In many American dialects, COT and CAUGHT are pronounced the same. Not in mine. PEN and PIN are prononced the same in the South. I'll stop. I could talk about this forever!
When I first moved to Australia form England and people invited me for tea, I expected it to be at 4.30 to 5 pm for tea and sandwiches and/or cake, whereas they meant what I would call dinner - a proper full meal.
I listened to the same program but was a little mistified as here in Essex when Iwas litle we had breakfast, lunch and dinner ,Dad worked in London so was not home in the middle of the day. Now we have breakfast, dinner and tea as we are both at home. Likewise I had Grandma’s, my mum was nan to my girls and I am a granny to my grandkids, it’s interesting though.
Here in the South US we have "creeks" which are anything from streams to baby rivers, but also "cricks" which may be more like brook or a wet-weather creek! A crick generally goes downhill pretty rapidly; one can't imagine a sluggish"crick."
Love your blog.
I am about to write a blog post on the same subject Pat - some friends have been discussing this over on a tiny private forum and we have had some lovely chats on this subject.
I call it a stream, 'cos I'm a Southerner! Meal-wise - it's breakfast, lunch, tea and if we have something late in the evening, that's supper (though my husband would NEVER eat after the evening meal!)
Elizabeth Yule - I was about to mention the word "shrammed" which dad and I used (he was Devon born and from generations and generations of Devon lineage.) We used "dimpsey" too, for dusk, and my Gloucester friend had "daps" when I had plimsoles and a shop cake with her would be "boughten" (as in not home made!) That's an expression I have taken from her and use.
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