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Tea if by sea, cha if by land: Why the world only has two words for tea

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Re: Tea if by sea, cha if by land: Why the world only has two words for tea

#81

Post by ronyclau »

gumby wrote: post #70
kawsper wrote: post #17

It can also refer to food like lunch or dinner which the danish school system did not prepare me for in their english lessons, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_(meal)#Tea_as_the_evening_...

That Wikipedia section needs a rewrite. It does mention that that usage is a class marker but then conflates it with the pastry-and-tea afternoon snack practice of upper classes. They are two radically disjoint uses. The origin of the “tea” being the term for evening meal are pretty well attested to lie the poverty of the English lower classes who could not afford much more than a cup of tea in the evening. I grew up…

Interesting! Never heard anyone use "tea" to describe the evening meal. Tea refers to the light meal at late afternoon, after lunch and before the evening meal (dinner) at my place, seems to be same as the "common" usage.

BTW, Cantonese is actually a "chai language": the character 茶 (tea) reads like "char" as in charcoal, without the h sound and in a low tone.

Re: Tea if by sea, cha if by land: Why the world only has two words for tea

#82

Post by phillc73 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #75
phillc73 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure? I thought the English brought tea to India after stealing it from China in the 19th Century.[1] Was there another source in India which the Portuguese had earlier access to? My initial cursory investigation via Wikipedia seems to indicate China as the initial source.[2] I'd be really interested, from an historical point of view, if this wasn't the case. [1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3081255-fo…

Charles II, after losing the Battle of Worcester, fled to Europe where he stayed for nine years [1][2]. There he discovered tea. He also discovered Catherine of Braganza, a tea drinker (like most of the Portuguese nobility) whom he married [3]. In 1660 the British monarchy was restored. Charles and Catherine then introduced the custom of tea drinking to the British court. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_I…

The demand for tea amongst the English aristocracy predated production in India.

The main impetus for the English to grow tea in India, was that it was costing too much to buy from the single monopolistic source, China. Basically, the Honourable Company was trading opium for tea. More money could be made, meeting English demand for tea, by producing it on Company controlled land.

The question is, where did Catherine of Braganza source her tea from? India, as suggested by the grandparent comment, or China.

Re: Tea if by sea, cha if by land: Why the world only has two words for tea

#83

Post by Y_Y »

ronyclau wrote: post #81
gumby wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That Wikipedia section needs a rewrite. It does mention that that usage is a class marker but then conflates it with the pastry-and-tea afternoon snack practice of upper classes. They are two radically disjoint uses. The origin of the “tea” being the term for evening meal are pretty well attested to lie the poverty of the English lower classes who could not afford much more than a cup of tea in the evening. I grew up…

Interesting! Never heard anyone use "tea" to describe the evening meal. Tea refers to the light meal at late afternoon, after lunch and before the evening meal (dinner) at my place, seems to be same as the "common" usage. BTW, Cantonese is actually a "chai language": the character 茶 (tea) reads like "char" as in charcoal, without the h sound and in a low tone.

In Ireland people would traditionally have had breakfast, then dinner, then tea as the three meals. Now that only happens in the country or on Sundays.

Re: Tea if by sea, cha if by land: Why the world only has two words for tea

#84

Post by ivanhoe »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #60
gerhardi wrote: post #59

Almost the same goes for the word Restaurant. Everywhere in the world it's almost the same - except in Russia it is pectopah! :)

For those who can't read any Russian, or never read that short story where this is the punchline essentially, pectopah is pronounced restoran. It only drops the T, basically.

It should be really written in upper case, as PECTOPAH, to match the cyrillic letters better :)

Re: Tea if by sea, cha if by land: Why the world only has two words for tea

#85

Post by School-Cotton »

ronyclau wrote: post #81
gumby wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That Wikipedia section needs a rewrite. It does mention that that usage is a class marker but then conflates it with the pastry-and-tea afternoon snack practice of upper classes. They are two radically disjoint uses. The origin of the “tea” being the term for evening meal are pretty well attested to lie the poverty of the English lower classes who could not afford much more than a cup of tea in the evening. I grew up…

Interesting! Never heard anyone use "tea" to describe the evening meal. Tea refers to the light meal at late afternoon, after lunch and before the evening meal (dinner) at my place, seems to be same as the "common" usage. BTW, Cantonese is actually a "chai language": the character 茶 (tea) reads like "char" as in charcoal, without the h sound and in a low tone.

What do you mean by “without the h sound” ? “Charcoal” doesn’t have an h sound as far as I can tell.

Re: Tea if by sea, cha if by land: Why the world only has two words for tea

#87

Post by _puk »

skety wrote: post #66
jwarren wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Londoner who moved north, it continually confuses me too. "What are you having for tea?" "Oh, err... just milk thanks"

Yeah, and dinner being used for lunch while tea is used for dinner. Not confusing at all.

At least you know where you stand with supper, right?!

Re: Tea if by sea, cha if by land: Why the world only has two words for tea

#88

Post by rkachowski »

gumby wrote: post #70
kawsper wrote: post #17

It can also refer to food like lunch or dinner which the danish school system did not prepare me for in their english lessons, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_(meal)#Tea_as_the_evening_...

That Wikipedia section needs a rewrite. It does mention that that usage is a class marker but then conflates it with the pastry-and-tea afternoon snack practice of upper classes. They are two radically disjoint uses. The origin of the “tea” being the term for evening meal are pretty well attested to lie the poverty of the English lower classes who could not afford much more than a cup of tea in the evening. I grew up…

I'd never heard of this before. Growing up in rural Scotland, meals were always "Breakfast", "Dinner" and "Tea". There was sometimes confusion with other people over whether dinner was a midday or evening meal, but I'd never thought much of it until now.

Re: Tea if by sea, cha if by land: Why the world only has two words for tea

#89

Post by angrygoat »

At least in Australia, "chai" is on sale in cafes meaning Masala chai, a mix of leaf tea and Indian spices and herbs. And then you've got the "chai latte", like a regular latte but with "chai" instead of espresso.

Amusing weirding of language - it should really be a "masala"!

Re: Tea if by sea, cha if by land: Why the world only has two words for tea

#90

Post by Y_Y »

gerdesj wrote: post #30
mhandley wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Likely that influence comes from when India was part of the British Empire. Lots of Indian-derived words made it into British English.

Pyjamas and bungalow are examples of borrow words from India. India has rather a lot of languages and I don't think you can lump them all into "Indian". "Char" as in "cuppa char?" is the usual spelling (would you like a cup of tea?) According to this: http://www.rmg.co.uk/discover/explore/cup-char it is likely that "char" is derived from Chinese (another country with rather a lot of languages - would the real Chinese…

I think this is overly snippy. GP just seemed to imply that the words cone from India, not that India has a single language.

Also as far as i can tell "cha" is far more common than "char" in the British Isles.

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