Solved: Dinner. When? What?

When I was a lad growing up in a country town my mum (and dad, as far as I know, in fact everyone) called the midday meal ‘dinner’. If someone asked what was for dinner they were referring specially to the midday meal; being lunch. This use of the word dinner, to the best of my memory, was the standard use within the township.

I moved to the city when I was about 23 because my employer was shutting down their mining operations. Once in the city environment I got very confused because dinner seemed to then refer to the evening meal, which we—in the country—called ‘tea’, or possibly supper.

From when I was able to know about it until I moved to the city the order of meals was breakfast in the morning, dinner at midday, and tea was the evening meal.

Then, in the city, order seemed to be breakfast, lunch, then dinner.

Over the past 30 or so years I have never really taken the time to clarify this so it has always been somewhat of a small problem and constant source of minor confusion in my head—but I have managed to work around it without missing too many meals.

The other night I was watching that highly educational TV show called The Big Bang Theory where Leonard explains to Penny that “There is an inherent ambiguity in the word dinner. Technically it refers to the largest meal of the day regardless of when it is consumed”. The following screen grab was taken of the actual scene where Howard is explaining this to Penny.

This caused me to finally look dinner up on www.dictionary.com and sure enough it says:

Suddenly it all makes perfect sense. Lunch can be dinner if lunch is generally considered the major meal of the day, or it can also be tea, in societies or groups where that is the main meal of the day.

Solved!!