I’ll put my hands up and say I called it ‘tea’ for years.
Mainly because when I was a child, my whole family called their evening meal ‘tea’ instead of dinner and then I just went with it.
I stopped after I moved out, but apparently for all my childhood, I was wrong. And anyone who calls their evening meal ‘tea’ is wrong, too.
That’s according to this etiquette expert, anyway.
“The correct order of meals is breakfast, lunch or luncheon as it is technically called, and then dinner,” William Hanson told The Sun.
‘Tea’ is instead an afternoon snack and something that you have in between lunch and dinner. William continued: “Then came supper historically and that was a light snack before you went to bed, maybe after the opera or theatre.”
Opera or theatre, because we all go to those on a daily basis.
A poll was then run on Twitter, and a lot of people had a lot of thoughts:
Poll time…this one’s important!
What do you call the meals of the day?!?!
— Um Bongo (@UmBongoUK) January 24, 2019
You don’t cook a Christmas lunch. Its dinner and tea
— Dave Evans (@Dave12Evans) January 24, 2019
None of the above, it’s breakfast, lunch, tea
— Steve Parsons (@steveparsnips) January 24, 2019
Not happy with the result thus far. Your followers are wrong
— MotherOfDragonChildren (@WantPrettyThing) January 25, 2019
BDT – why else at school do you have dinner ladies….. pic.twitter.com/U4WLAqbb0C
— Mary (@Bristolmary) January 24, 2019
Call it whatever you want, guys. It makes zero difference.