Now if we can just figure out what in dinner, lunch and supper.... To me, the largest meal of the day was dinner, whether it is in the middle of the day or in the evening. During the week, dinner was always in the evening, as I came home from work to enjoy dinner with my family, but on Sunday, dinner was often served right after church and supper was the evening meal. Lunch was the mid-day meal if it was not the largest of the day.
I have always understood dinner and supper to be used interchangeably, meaning the evening meal of the day, although "sup" means "to take in a little at a time." So supper technically refers to a light meal, while you are having dinner when you sit down to dine. But I've rarely used the word "dinner." So to answer the question asked in the thread title...nothing is for dinner. But I had a nice supper.
I think that, like pop, soda, or coke, it's more of a regional thing. Of course, wherever there are differences, the way that I would say it is the only correct way. There has to be some standards in life, and I'm it.
I have relatives from Pennsylvania. They said "pop." I never understood exactly how anyone knew what they wanted. Regarding dinner & supper, here's what Merriam-Webster has to say about it: "Dinner and supper are both used to refer to the main meal of the day, and especially to that meal as eaten in the evening. Supper is used especially when the meal is an informal one eaten at home, while dinner tends to be the term chosen when the meal is more formal. In some dialects and especially in British English, supper can also refer to a light meal or snack that is eaten late in the evening." Dictionary.com has a pretty good history of the words,basically supporting what someone on the other thread said...that dinner is the large midday meal when we engaged in manual labor starting early in the morning. Supper was an optional later snack, if required (echoing what Merriam-Websters says.) Then the way we work changed, and the large meal shifted to the evening, and the meanings of the words got commingled.
Certainly in the old days, the principal meal was at midday as the work day was ongoing, and the evening meal was lighter because they believed a heavy meal at night would cause poor sleep. When eating with folks in South America, the evening meal sometimes started at 9 or 10 at night and go until midnight. It was strange to my tastes then, but as a young guy, I could roll with the punches.
When we first met Jake called them soda, and crackers ,nabs, The kids,7,8 and 9 at the time said, what is that?
My thesaurus: Morning meal……coffee. The most important meal of the day. (it doesn’t matter if food is also introduced, the morning meal is still called coffee.) Meal between morning and midday …….snack and in some cases, big snack. Midday meal…….another snack or for some folks, lunch. Evening meal……grub, chow or belly stuffin’, sometimes dinner and maybe supper depending on what it consists of. e.g. If one is eating to eat, it’s chow, grub or belly stuffin’. If one is dining then it’s dinner If one is knocking out Ramen noodles , in order to make the meal sound better, it’s called supper.
Us too, it's just coffee till I take my aspirin then usually p-nut butter crackers. Our first meal is lunch.not sure whats for dinner.
On the subject of breakfast, dinner, and supper versus breakfast, lunch, and supper, I am reading an account from someone who was traveling by wagon train across the Utah Territory in the mid-1800s, shortly after the Mormons had colonized it. At one point, the author quoted the guy guiding the wagon party saying something about not expecting to eat breakfast, dinner, and supper while traveling, and when he said "dinner," he added, "or luncheon as the Californians call it." So, we can blame Californians for this nonsense about lunch rather than dinner. California has been screwing up the language for nearly two centuries.
And when none of them knows what meal they're eating or when they're eating it, they all move to Texas and Utah to screw up their dining definitions. My dream is of the day we merge the Supper and Dinner threads and put this conflict to rest.