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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

#111

Post by Broken_Hippo »

vidarh wrote: post #57
ljf wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a kid in Sheffield I understood it as 'dinner' was your hot meal whenever you might have it, and tea was a lighter meal. So many kids had a hot meal at school (school dinner) and then went home for tea.

As a Norwegian in London, I still find it weird that my sons school serves "school dinner" around lunch-time. Even though the Norwegian word for dinner is "middag" which literally means "middle of the day" (though nobody uses it in that meaning any more, since it would be very confusing given that "middags-tider" "dinner-time" is pretty consistently late afternoon/early evening)

As an American in Norway, I still find it weird that warm lunches aren't a normal part of the school day. Then again, I remember school lunches. The kids aren't missing much.

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

#112

Post by tombh »

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! :)

Just to be nitpicky, the Cyrillic is ресторан, so it's pronounced something like; "restoran".

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

#113

Post by neffy »

ekianjo wrote: post #33

Tea to Japan was certainly not "by land". I know they want to make it into a simple rule, but that's just not as simple as they pretend.

Exactly and London working class slang for tea is cha, which I always assumed must have originated at the docks.

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

#114

Post by pbhjpbhj »

signal11 wrote: post #100
rkachowski wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Thanks, that was very informative. I was always told that dinner (from "dine") is the main meal of the day. So if you have a 'fancy' afternoon meal that can be your dinner (e.g. we usually do Christmas dinner between 3 and 4). I wonder if HN knows of a linguistic map for meal names, it appears that these words shift meaning a lot. EDIT: I thought this was interesting -- "Harvard's Dialect Survey had the question, 'Wh…

I don't think it's as easy as geography, it depends on your parents upbringing too.

One other great British-English question is "what do you call an individually portioned baked bread article" ... roll, barm, bap, cob, ...

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

#115

Post by [deleted] »

dwyer wrote: post #93

I'm no Chinese expert, so somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but I've found that the Chinese word 茶 (cha) doesn't always necessarily mean tea, but can refer generically to a number of different brewed drinks. e.g. barley tea (大麥茶), ginger tea (薑茶), golden oats tea (燕麥茶), etc. all of which translate to tea, but often contain no tea leaves. It may seem like a nitpick, but when you're in China and order what you expect t…

[deleted]

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

#116

Post by wazoox »

jwarren wrote: post #27
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_...

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

In French, dejeuner, meaning literally breakfast, used to mean just that. But the nobility was used to getting up so late that dejeuner became lunch, diner became the evening meal, and they invented the 'petit dejeuner' to name the breakfast. In southern France and rural areas, dejeuner remained breakfast, dinner the mid-day meal, and souper the evening one. Miscommunication ensues :)

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

#117

Post by toomanybeersies »

angrygoat wrote: post #89

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"!

Except that chai lattes are usually made with sickly sweet syrup, rather than powder.

I must admit though, I do have a soft spot for dirty chai, which is a chai latte with a shot of espresso.

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

#118

Post by fyfy18 »

spfix63 wrote: post #56
jutaz wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lithuanians call tea as "arbata", and it's boiled in "arbatinis". It also has nothing to do with "herbs". AFAIK, there is no reference to the word tea or cha anywhere in terms of tea.

Clearly, arbata comes from the same herbal tea origin, just the h got dropped somewhere along the way, herb -> arba, tea -> ta

This would appear to be confirmed based on regional dialects from this area.

In the Samogitian dialect of Lithuanian it's spelled "erbata", however the first "a" in modern Lithuanian isn't stressed, so it's very similar. Also in Kashubian (spoken in parts of northern Poland, often considered a dialect of Pomeranian) it is the same as modern Lithuanian.

On the other hand in Sambian Prussian it is "tejs", which is similar to "teja" in modern Lativan. It's interesting how two different forms emerged in the same geographic area.

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

#120

Post by gerhardi »

tombh wrote: post #112
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! :)

Just to be nitpicky, the Cyrillic is ресторан, so it's pronounced something like; "restoran".

Yeah, thats the pun - sorry for not being clear with my intention! Same idea applies for many words or names where the cyrillic characters have close resemblance with some other latin characters ("Hatawa is a popular russian/slavic girl's name" - of course properly it should be translittered as Natasha...)
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