What do you call it - meal names?

Lunch (although in my office you go out for Snap or dinner, not lunch or food)

Of course, snap. Any food can be snap. but the term comes from miners talking their sandwiches in a tin (to protect from the rats underground) and the tin would snap shut - hence the term "snap tin". My dad used to have one. When he was making his sandwiches for work he referred to it has "making his snap" or "putting his snap up"

It was explained to me this way - all based on the time of day.  
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Elevensies 10-12

I thought that was invented by Tolkien for the Hobbits!  

Growing up on the east coast of the US, we called it breakfast, lunch, and dinner or supper.  But I don't really remember using the term supper since the 70s or 80s to me, I think it maybe fell out of fashion as a term?

Here in the north of England it's pretty much what TykeMan said:

The dinner at lunch time, and calling the evening meal tea is very much a northern thing.

When I was a kid
Breakfast
Dinner
Tea
Supper - usually cereal.

 Dessert, if you have it, is directly after your main meal, it's pudding, sweet. It could be some strawberries and cream, ice cream, rice pudding etc.

But I still use the terms breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert.  Hubby says breakfast, lunch, tea, dessert.

Neither of us say pudding for dessert (though he probably did growing up), and I never use the term supper.  

And I'm always way too stuffed to eat any snacks after dinner and dessert!

Also, I can't used to saying "going out for a meal".  It just sounds so utilitarian to me.  I still prefer to say "going out for dinner".

Also, I can't used to saying "going out for a meal".  It just sounds so utilitarian to me.  I still prefer to say "going out for dinner".

I think that's a general term people use to avoid the whole supper/dinner/tea issue which can be laden with difficulty.

I think that's a general term people use to avoid the whole supper/dinner/tea issue which can be laden with difficulty.

Oh, that makes sense.

I think that's a general term people use to avoid the whole supper/dinner/tea issue which can be laden with difficulty.

Wow now that makes sense...

My BF prefers Elevenses to breakfast and I won the pudding vs dessert thing because I used logic "but dumpling, 'puddings' can be savory as well as sweet! How do I know if you mean toffee pudding or yorkshire pudding?" so it's:

Breakfast
Elevenses
Lunch
Dinner/tea (he says "tea" half the time)
Dessert


A slightly related question: do the Brits in your life use napkins/serviettes? My BF (from London) says his family only ever used them when they went out to a restaurant and he ocassionally marvels at the wonder of having napkins at the table for every meal like it's some kind of special treat.  We had dinner with some friends of his from college (Manchester) and they wound up giving me a tea towel 'cause it was that or some kleenex. Have other people encountered this?

While in the US it was breakfast, lunch and dinner.  Now it's breakfast, dinner and tea.  I asked DH what supper was and he said it's when you have tea late in the evening...but I've never heard anyone around here use that term.

DH and his family use 'snap' to refer to their packed lunches (aka dinners) for work (maybe that goes back to the miners thing since his family where all miners).

I remember the first time he told me he was going to go cook his tea.  I couldn't figure out how you cook tea.  I also believe most Americans think 'tea time' is a specific time in the evening that everyone sits down to drink tea.

A slightly related question: do the Brits in your life use napkins/serviettes? My BF (from London) says his family only ever used them when they went out to a restaurant and he ocassionally marvels at the wonder of having napkins at the table for every meal like it's some kind of special treat.  We had dinner with some friends of his from college (Manchester) and they wound up giving me a tea towel 'cause it was that or some kleenex. Have other people encountered this?

My MIL doesn't use napkins, but she's an oddity. My side of the family (we're Brits too) always uses them.

In my house the meals are:

Breakfast

Lunch

Tea (between 5 and 7pm)

and occasionally we have a 'Supper' later in the evening... usually something like a bowl of soup, cheese and crackers, or some crisps round 9pm (often while watching TV).

A slightly related question: do the Brits in your life use napkins/serviettes? My BF (from London) says his family only ever used them when they went out to a restaurant and he ocassionally marvels at the wonder of having napkins at the table for every meal like it's some kind of special treat.  We had dinner with some friends of his from college (Manchester) and they wound up giving me a tea towel 'cause it was that or some kleenex. Have other people encountered this?

We don't use napkins in our house unless we're having a nice dinner with friends or it's a special occasion, such as Christmas Dinner (we also break out the fancy tablecloth then too) (P.S. We're all Brits)

A slightly related question: do the Brits in your life use napkins/serviettes? My BF (from London) says his family only ever used them when they went out to a restaurant and he ocassionally marvels at the wonder of having napkins at the table for every meal like it's some kind of special treat.  We had dinner with some friends of his from college (Manchester) and they wound up giving me a tea towel 'cause it was that or some kleenex. Have other people encountered this?

I have had dinner/tea at 3 friends houses and obviously in my house and no one has napkins regularly available.  I was a little shocked with 2 kids and they don't use napkins but the youngest sees me get one for every meal (even if its a paper towel) and now starts to get one which has helped the grubbiness keep to a minimum.
<shrug>
I am a messy person but also DH has taught these kids early on to use your knife (which is present at almost every meal) to put food on your fork and never use your finger.  I have that habit and its hard to break.
;-)

In the US I said/say

breakfast
lunch
supper (my family is originally from the midwest so maybe that's why?)

However, if I'm going out, I'm more likely to say dinner. No idea why. More formal I guess.

In the UK with the ex we said

breakfast
lunch
tea (he's a northener)

My in-laws have

a cup of tea
breakfast
another cup of tea
a cup of coffee and biscuit
dinner (the big, hot meal of the day)
a cup of tea
another cup of tea and a biscuit
tea (which was often just a sandwich or light dessert)
and another cup of tea
and maybe another

I don't know why they didn't spend half their lives in the loo with all that tea they drink!

My inlaws drink at least that much tea as well.  They don't drink water or anything else unless it's the occasional alcoholic beverage or something like a soda if it's really hot. At night they might have a Horlick's if it's cold.  And my MiL makes most of the drinks for my BiL and FiL.  If she makes one cuppa a day, she makes fifteen or twenty.

It's a little joke amongst DHs family and friends that our house is a 'No Cuppa' zone if he's not in.  I don't drink tea or coffee (well I didn't before my son was born...now I do just to stay alive) and because I'm new to the UK...offering a cuppa is just not a habit for me...it's not something I think about.  So when people come to visit us...because I'm not craving tea or coffee anyway since I don't really drink it...I forget to ask people if they want one.  If someone comes over with kids, I always offer them some juice or milk or water or whatever...but I always forget about the adults.  Oops.

Sometimes I feel obligated to accept a cup of tea or coffee when we go visiting because some people have reacted as if I'm insulting them by not taking a drink.  I get the strange look and "Are you sure?" with raised eyebrows like I'm such a freak (which I probably am...but not for those reasons  ).

My husband says:

Breakfast
Dinner (when at home in the middle of the day- when it's a workday, he calls this meal lunch)
Tea or Dinner (with 2 meals a day called dinner, can get confusing!)

He's from the midlands.

In our house (ie, with my influence) we generally say

Breakfast
Lunch or Dinner (interchangeably)
Dinner (usually dinner, but very occasionally tea.)

With the whole dinner thing, I have to rely on context/time of day to figure out which one we're talking about.