On 2006-09-29, Kate Connally > wrote:

> most surveys. I tend to think of supper, though as an
> evening meal on Sunday - as in "Sunday supper". Or a
> very late meal like having a late supper after the
> theater. I don't think of anything mid-day as dinner or
> supper. Although there are times I've been forced into
> eating dinner or supper at "lunchtime". ;-)

The word dinner and supper have been at odds in contemporary US for a
long time. I think a lot of it is regional and urban vs rural. In
reading older books, it's not uncommon to hear rural types referring
to the mid-day meal as dinner. The same with the English. Here's
what one reference says:

"Word History: Eating foods such as pizza and ice cream for breakfast
may be justified etymologically. In Middle English dinner meant
"breakfast," as did the Old French word disner, or diner, which was
the source of our word. The Old French word came from the Vulgar Latin
word *disinre, meaning "to break one's fast; that is, to eat one's
first meal," a notion also contained in our word breakfast. The Vulgar
Latin word was derived from an earlier word, *disiinre, the Latin
elements of which are dis-, denoting reversal, and iinium, "fast."
Middle English diner not only meant "breakfast" but, echoing usage of
the Old French word diner, more commonly meant "the first big meal of
the day, usually eaten between 9 A.M. and noon." Customs change,
however, and over the years we have let the chief meal become the last
meal of the day, by which time we have broken our fast more than once."

Some of the above has incorrect text characters due to font
incompatibilities. See this page:
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/dinner

I use breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I've never used supper. OTOH,
I've known folks, again mostly rural, who prefer breakfast, dinner
(lunch), supper.

nb