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Grammar Girl Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing

625 - ‘Dinner’ or ‘Supper’? How to Write a Thank-You Note

Grammar Girl Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing

Mignon Fogarty, Inc.

Society & Culture, Education

4.52.9K Ratings

🗓️ 14 June 2018

⏱️ 13 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

‘Dinner’ or ‘Supper’? How to Write a Thank-You Note FOLLOW GRAMMAR GIRL Twitter: http://twitter.com/grammargirl Facebook: http://facebook.com/grammargirl Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/realgrammargirl Instagram: http://instagram.com/thegrammargirl LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/grammar-girl YouTube: http://youtube.com/thegrammargirl SPONSORS The Splendid Table Podcast http://awaytravel.com/grammar (offer code GRAMMAR) http://stitcherpremium.com/grammar (offer code GRAMMAR) GRAMMAR POP iOS GAME Optimized for iPad: http://bit.ly/GrammarPopiPad For iPad and iPhone: http://bit.ly/GrammarPop GRAMMAR GIRL BOOKS http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/grammar-girl-book-page

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Grimmer Girl here, I'm Minyon Fogarty. This week I have a quick and dirty tip about dinner

0:10.0

versus supper, and a meaty middle about how to write a thank you note.

0:15.9

Jake from Kentucky wrote that when he moved to Norfolk, Virginia, he was labeled a hillbilly

0:22.1

for calling the last meal of the day supper instead of dinner. He said, quote, to me, dinner

0:29.0

and lunch meant the same thing. Only dinner was more so. You have lunch in the school

0:34.5

cafeteria. You have Thanksgiving dinner at the same time, but because there's more to

0:39.8

eat, it's a dinner and not a lunch. I just shrugged and said, it's called the last supper,

0:45.1

not the last dinner, and then because I care more than I probably should about what others

0:50.2

think of me, I just call it chow, regardless of the time it's being served, unquote.

0:57.2

People have asked me about this before, what is the difference between dinner and supper?

1:03.7

Fortunately, dialect researchers have surveyed thousands of Americans about what they think

1:09.2

the difference is between dinner and supper. First, supper is far less commonly used

1:15.9

in the Western United States. It's more of a Southern, Eastern, and Midwestern phenomenon.

1:23.1

Speaking into the data, about a third of respondents think the words dinner and supper mean the

1:28.7

same thing and describe the evening meal. Another third don't use the word supper at all,

1:35.4

and I fall into that category probably because I've lived my whole life in the non-suppour

1:40.0

using Western United States. Where it gets much more ambiguous is at the midday meal. Most

1:47.6

people today call the midday meal lunch, but about 7% of people said they'd call the midday meal

1:55.4

dinner, and nobody seems to call the midday meal supper. So that's one way dinner and supper

2:02.3

differ. Although both can be the evening meal, only dinner can be a midday meal.

2:09.0

And Jake seems to fall into either the 8% of people who say dinner is the biggest meal of the day,

2:15.0

no matter what time you have it, or the 12% who say dinner takes place in a more formal setting

...

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