I should have posted a Monday Mural post, but I didn't feel like it.
I should have written the penultimate England visit post, but I didn't feel like it.
I should have written a push button post, where I know there will be a lot of comments, some disagreeing with me, but I didn't feel like it.
I should have written a Maurice from Mornington post complaining about the Sunday Melbourne disruption to trams and traffic caused by a FUN RUN, but I didn't feel like it.
I should write a post about R's new smart watch (RRP $650), that came as a bonus with ME paying for my new phone, but I didn't feel like it.
I should write a post about how adept I was with technology in the 1990s and I was the go to person for help and to my regret evolution has not given me the flexible thumbs that young people have as they skim over their phones, but I didn't feel like it.
I think Quora is a bit like Reddit. I am a member of both but understand neither. Somehow I receive a couple of emails a day from Quora. Because I keep reading posts of English people pretending to be US people, baiting English Quora members to respond, whereby crap is then piled on to the US for its gun laws, poor social security and the lack of a universal health care system. EG, Why is American health care the most expensive in the world but leads to bankruptcy and a low age death rate in the US? Or, The communist health system in the UK can't cope with the numbers of patients in the tiny and dreary wet nation. Why don't people of the UK look to the US as the best nation in the world for superior healthcare?
Once you've read a few of those, it becomes tedious. Perhaps the Quora algorithm has picked up my boredom with the subject and today sent me some subjects more interesting. Here are a couple of copy and pastes.
Does this clear the dinner matter up? Yes...and no.
Simple. Forget clocks and time.
First meal of the day is always Break Fast. Typing is deliberate. A fast is a period of not eating. Breakfast breaks that period following sleep. That one is fixed
Lunch is the mid-day meal … EXCEPT when it is dinner, in which case it is dinnertime.
Tea is teatime, around 4PM until 6PM ISH depending on work/lifestyle etc. (let's not draw in afternoon tea or high tea). EXCEPT when it's dinner time.
Dinner time is dinner, sometime after tea time …. .think light tea and then a proper dinner. EXCEPT when it's not.
Supper is always the small meal at the end of the day, irrespective of dinner time.
Why?;Simple. Dinner is always the main meal of the day irrespective of when it is eaten time wise : think meat n 2 veg, treacle sponge n custard for afters. Or a sit down 4 courses in a restaurant even if you had meat/veg n pudding for lunch.
Lunch could be dinnertime with sandwiches and a cuppa eaten for tea.
Tea could be dinnertime with a hot ovaltine and a choccy biscuit for supper…
Dinnertime is always dinnertime ‘cos that is when you eat the main meal of your day.
Simples. You could have just looked in a reputable dictionary.
As this author says, native English speakers not knowing order words rules are not picked up for word order correctness. Read on. The author expresses it better. Note, if you don't know ESL is English as a Second Language.
I mean, I’m not able to answer the question definitively for every language, but my favourite in English is a (by now somewhat notorious) rule in the English language that most English speakers pick up by default.
The order of adjectives in English, at first, doesn’t seem to be fixed. However, as quoted by Mark Forsyth in The Elements of Eloquence, adjectives in English ‘absolutely have to be in this order: opinion-size-age-shape-colour-origin-material-purpose Noun. So you can have a lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife. But if you mess with that order in the slightest you’ll sound like a maniac.’
Some examples:
a French silver lovely rectangular green old whittling little knife.
a silver green old French lovely whittling little rectangular knife.
a lovely rectangular silver French little whittling old green knife.
They all just seem wrong.
In native English-speaking English lessons, I’m pretty sure no-one gets taught this rule (no-one I’ve shown it ever has been) - but it is taught rigorously for ESL students, which blows my mind.
So yeah, probably nothing in comparison to other languages (I can’t imagine learning 64 cases in Tsez), but something from English that is more complex than you may think.
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I did know about the adjectives order rule - though I came across it late in life, and was certainly never taught it. It is amazing how wrong things sound when that order is transgressed though.
ReplyDeleteQuora? Reddit:? You might as well be speaking Greek (which I do not understand) to me.
EC, although the word order is so wrong in the examples, we can still understand what is being expressed, which adds an extra dimension to the post. As I said, I don't understand how either site works.
DeleteHa, yes, the eternal lunch, tea, dinner question still rumbles on and creates much heated debate sometimes.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading that last item. The English language is obviously designed to bamboozle non-native speakers.
JayCee, doesn't the English language bamboozle we native speakers too at times? As a one time volunteer teacher of ESL, at times you can't say anything beyond 'that is just how it is' when asked for the rules.
DeleteR and myself agree on breakfast, morning tea or brunch, lunch, afternoon tea but not our evening dinner which he calls tea.
I hope tomorrow is a better day, Andrew. In our house we have breakfast (sometimes) lunch (sometimes) and supper (always) One daughter has tea (our supper), one has dinner (our lunch), and I don't know what our son and third daughter have!
ReplyDeleteMost interesting to read of the family conflict JB. For me supper must come after 9pm, a couple of hours after dinner. I don't eat after dinner though.
DeleteMondayitis is common including me. I had to wake up around -2 degree Celsius this morning driving through mist and fog to Echuca. Only to get a humble income.
ReplyDeleteWell Roentare, as poor and underpaid as you clearly are, show me your Bitcoin account balance.
DeleteInteresting about the adjectives. I have never realised it was thus. But it does make sense now when some people muck it up and it jars.
ReplyDeleteWe are a breakfast lunch and dinner mob.
Caro, nor did I realise there was a rule. We just do as we learnt in our young informative years. The meal names are generally a bit clearer here, aside from dinner/tea.
DeleteCrazy.
ReplyDeleteDarla, you are not the first to accuse me of being crazy 😉
DeleteI don't recall EVER learning that English adjective rule, but it does make sense when that sentence is spoken accordingly, the other examples all sound wrong.
ReplyDeleteFor meals we have always had breakfast, lunch and dinner. "tea" for us was either morning tea or afternoon tea and we rarely had either since the gaps between the main meals weren't all that long and we didn't get hungry. We never had supper. dinner was always filling enough. These days I do nibble a little something between dinner and bedtime while watching TV which probably goes a long way to explaining the size of my bum!
River, it is interesting that while the sentences sound wrong, we can still understand what is being said. On our farm my father and his brother used to come into the house for morning tea, and then lunch and later afternoon tea before the cows were milked. Dinner was usually around 7pm.
DeleteI've just remembered that throughout my and my children's childhood, we had "tea" instead of "dinner", always being told "be home in time for tea". I don't recall when I started calling it dinner.
DeleteGod help the young ones of today then with their English, it's just frightful at times Andrew. The youngens' have changed the English heaps - a lot, well not all of them but most of them.
ReplyDeleteMargaret, I did reply but the comment has evaporated for some reason.
DeleteThis is a hard blogpost to comment on so instead I shall just say nothing.
ReplyDeleteYP, rather than couch it nice words, you could just say 'This is boring Andrew. Bugger orf.
DeleteMy English grandmother simply taught me, it is right, when it sounds right, when it has the meaning you wanted. Why is it called tea? Because it is, it is part of the culture, get on with life.
ReplyDeleteTravel, while I know some grammar rules, I am happy to breach them to make something sound or read right, as your grandmother said.
DeleteSince you didn't feel like posting about anything but managed to post about the things you did not want to post about, I'll salute your ability to subtly post about all those things.
ReplyDeleteStrayer, looking at it like that, I think I'll take that compliment. Thank you.
DeleteI sometimes struggle if I have to put more than two adjectives before a noun, so that list might come in handy.
ReplyDeleteI confess to not knowing the English ever refer to dinner as tea. Could it be an Englishman posing as an American that asked that question?
Kirk, I would have to do a lot of analysing of my own speech to understand if I get the word order correct. In Australia the evening dinner was often and still is referred to as tea. 'What's for tea tonight'? 'What will we have for tea love?'. My evening meal is dinner, but for English born R it is tea.
ReplyDelete