I fear they will revoke my Southerner card.

People around here talk funny. I talk funny, too, so I can say that. It's like saying my sister's ugly -- I can say it, but nobody else can without risking a bloody snoot.

And I know that I talk funny and everybody around me talks funny, but that doesn't mean that I always understand what's being said.

Here's the thing I don't get: dinner and supper.

Now, around here, dinnertime generally means the hour of noon or somewhere thereabouts. Suppertime is the evening meal. Of course if you work second or third shift time isn't as big of an issue and the designation for your midshift meal is generally "dinnertime." Supper is the meal after that.

I'm afraid to admit this, but I use the two terms pretty much interchangably, and I use them solely in reference to the evening meal. The midday meal to me is Lunch.

Now, before anybody spits out their sweet tea and calls me a carpetbagger, let me assure you that I am born and raised Southern, right down the shoes that are not on my feet. And despite my elevated educational level and bona-fide degree in English I still say things like "y'all" and "ain't" and all manner of stuff that's just not proper grammar. If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it must be a duck, right?

And that's just it -- I speak the language. I understand my neighbors and they understand me.

But at noontime, I go get myself some lunch.

And at six PM, I call my family to the supper table, to have dinner.

I can't really keep it straight in my head, either. When someone says dinner to me I picture meatloaf and mashed potatoes, unlike what I picture for lunch, which is a sandwich. I'm just as likely to ask my family what they want for supper as I am to say dinner's almost ready and no you can't have a snack right now. It's all the same to me.

It's shameful, that's what it is.




-- Mox