Tea, Dinner or Supper?

Vocabulary and Social Class

Of the many indicators of social class in Britain one of the most common is the choice of meals and names for these meals.

It is a source of great confusion for foreign visitors.

Here is the answer as written by Kate Fox in her exquisite book "Watching the English" published by Hodder 2004.

What do you call the evening meal?

And what time do you eat it?

If you call it "tea", and eat it at around half past six, you are almost certainly working class or of working class origin. (If you have a tendency to personalize the meal, calling it "my tea", "our/us tea" and "your tea" - as in "I must be going home for my tea", "what's for us tea, love?" or "Come back to mine for your tea" - you are probably northern working class.)
If you call the evening meal "dinner", and eat it at around seven o'clock, you are probably lower-middle or middle-middle class.
If you normally only use the term "dinner" for rather more formal evening meals, and call your informal, family evening meal "supper" (pronounced "suppah"), you are probably upper-middle or upper class. The timing of these meals tends to be more flexible, but a family "supper" is generally eaten at around half past seven, while a "dinner" would usually be later, from half past eight onwards.

If your a mix of class, it means your an alien.
Sorry to break the news to you

Cally-m missed that section out you see.