Talk:Dinner

Template:Limitedgeographicscope

Okay, Derek, you've defined it; but can you serve it? I skipped lunch, and I'm absolutely famished... --Ed Poor

<heh>, <heh> First things, first, Ed, look after the inner man properly and you'll have more energy to create better articles. I made sure that I had my dinner before I rewrote the article. ;-) Sorry I can't give you anything more 'filling'. -- Derek Ross

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Dinner vs. supper

May I ask why you redefined what was already available under the less ambiguous term supper? -montréalais

Sorry but I don't think that it is unambiguous. I live in Britain and as far as I'm concerned supper is a light meal to be had before bedtime. Dinner is not supper. I'm afraid that I will be changing supper to reflect that information too. The main reason that I redefined it was that the article needed to describe the actual structure of the meal and the previous version didn't really do that. If you look at High Tea you'll find that I didn't need to do such a wholesale reconstruction as you provided good solid info there -- as you have done in supper for the most part.-- Derek Ross

Well, as you see fit. Please do the following, however:

1. retain the information in supper (move it to dinner if you prefer);`
2. note that the word "supper" refers to dinner in Canada and the US, and that "dinner" sometimes means "lunch";
3. add links to dinner to breakfast, brunch, lunch, high tea, supper, and dessert.

Other than that, I leave it in your capable hands. - montréalais

To Montréalais: No problem, I'll do all that. Your description is obviously fine for North America, so I don't intend to remove it. It just doesn't describe a British (or at any rate a Scottish) supper. :-- Derek Ross

To save you some time and trouble, I have tried to disambiguate somewhat under dinner and supper between these, high tea, and lunch. Perhaps you will not need to move anything about. - montréalais

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How many courses at dinner?

I sit down to dinner quite often in the United States and only have one course. Your description might be good for "formal dinner" or some such. --rmhermen

To rmhermen: I'd hesitate to call a one course dinner, dinner. It would seem more like a generic meal to me. However I'm no expert on US dinners. Each to his own. If I'm just describing British dinners, you should add a note to the article.

-- Derek Ross

Most of the time, ordinary North American dinners consist in just one course, plus dessert. - montréalais

Hmmm... Surely that makes two courses? Am I missing something?

To add to the English side of this debate, there is something of a division in England. Some people (like me) use 'lunch' for the midday meal and 'dinner' or 'supper' synonymously for the evening meal, which is normally eaten fairly late, say 7.30 or 8.30. To stave of hunger between these meals, they may have 'tea' as a kind of organised snack around 4 or 5, normally involving tea the drink (we're English after all) and something along the lines of toast, crumpets, little cakes or biscuits (my mouth is watering at the thought). Others use 'dinner' to mean the midday meal, 'tea' to mean the evening meal which is normally eaten fairly early, say 6, and 'supper' to mean a snack before bedtime. I believe the broad trend is that in the South people fall into the former category and in the North of England (and I think Scotland and Northern Ireland) people tend to fall into the latter. I believe the change between one and the other is roughly in line with Cambridge (so not very far North at all). Also, (as noted in the Dinner page) the phrase 'school dinners' has entered the language (in England, I mean) to mean lunch served at school, and 'dinner ladies' are the people who serve it.

Owen Jones 00:14, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Limited geographic scope

The article mainly discusses the practices in North America and the U.K. I think it would be great if it touched on other cultures as well. I've added the template "Limited geographic scope" and listed the article on the Countering Systemic Bias project list. / Alarm 08:44, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)