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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

#231

Post by irrational »

teh_klev wrote: post #180
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.

I'm also originally from rural Scotland (around Tomintoul), for us it was "Breakfast", "Dinner" and "Supper". Upon moving to the central belt, and ingratiating myself into more middle class circles of friends I then discovered: Breakfast - eaten usually when you get up in the morning, say early morning until ~1030am Lunch - eaten from 12pm until ~2:30pm Afternoon Tea - taken from around 3:30pm until 4:30pm (cakes/bis…

What about second breakfast and elevenses?

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

#232

Post by voidlogic »

rkachowski wrote: post #88
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…

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.

There is tons of disagreement about this stuff, as it varies so much region to region, but in general, in most English peaking places:

The three meals are "Breakfast", "Lunch" and "Supper". And if Lunch or Supper is the biggest/most formal meal of the day it may be called "Dinner" instead. Hence family "Christmas Dinner" may be at lunch time, but your "Dinner party" is in the evening.

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

#234

Post by HumanDrivenDev »

tsing wrote: post #24
taejo wrote: post #19

Kind of strange that this refers to "Sinitic" contrasting to "Min Nan" when Min Nan is a Sinitic language.

Just learnt that "Min Nan" dialect can be referred to "Hokkien"

Singaporeans and Malaysians almost always call the language "Hokkien" - at least when speaking English. "Min Nan" seems like a term only linguists use.

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

#235

Post by School-Cotton »

voidlogic wrote: post #232
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.

There is tons of disagreement about this stuff, as it varies so much region to region, but in general, in most English peaking places: The three meals are "Breakfast", "Lunch" and "Supper". And if Lunch or Supper is the biggest/most formal meal of the day it may be called "Dinner" instead. Hence family "Christmas Dinner" may be at lunch time, but your "Dinner party" is in the evening.

Thanks, I was always confused about why people talk about having "Thanksgiving Dinner" in the early afternoon and now it makes perfect sense.

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

#236

Post by sithadmin »

irrational wrote: post #230
jackbravo wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In spanish I think all countries agree on at least: desayuno (breakfast), comida (lunch), cena (dinner) as the three basic. But we also have merienda and almuerzo which get different times and portions depending on country. And there can be other terms of course. In Guadalajara, México, where I live, schools say "hora del lonche" (lunch time) to the midday meal.

Interesting. In Puerto Rico, comida meant food and almuerzo meant lunch.

'La Comida' as the main meal of the day at approximately lunchtime is a Castillian term and generally a Spanish (in the sense of: people that live in Spain) practice. The practice and this sense of the term 'comida' aren't common in Latin America, in my experience.

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

#237

Post by Brakenshire »

klipt wrote: post #222
teh_klev wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm also originally from rural Scotland (around Tomintoul), for us it was "Breakfast", "Dinner" and "Supper". Upon moving to the central belt, and ingratiating myself into more middle class circles of friends I then discovered: Breakfast - eaten usually when you get up in the morning, say early morning until ~1030am Lunch - eaten from 12pm until ~2:30pm Afternoon Tea - taken from around 3:30pm until 4:30pm (cakes/bis…

I see where Tolkien got his inspiration for Hobbit meals...

He's actually missing out elevenses and brunch.

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

#238

Post by thekingshorses »

seshagiric wrote: post #219
protonfish wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Masala means "blend of spices" "Garam masala" is a blend of hot spices, "chai masala" is meant for making tea, In the US, Chai usually refers to Indian style tea with milk and spices. Source: I've worked with a lot of Indian people.

As an Indian I want to put this on record, the spiced tea is absolutely obnoxious. We do not drink it. There is a different one flavored with ginger or cardamon, which people like and tastes so much better than 'masala chai' sold in US etc.

Indian here too. We do drink masala chai in India (Gujarat).

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

#239

Post by jdmichal »

HumanDrivenDev wrote: post #233

In modern Taiwanese Min Nan, "tê" sounds more like "day" than "tea". Maybe it sounded different in the Min Nan of Fujian a few hundred years ago, or something was "lost in transcription" when the dutch wrote "thee".

I don't have any reason not to believe you, but your position does not seem to be backed up by Wikipedia, where /d/ is not listed as a phoneme.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA/Taiwanese_Hokkien

I have a hypothesis, mostly dependent on the position of a native English speaker, which I have no idea whether you are or not:

It's common to not be able to easily distinguish /e/ and /ai/. English does not have the former, and it tends to best match to the /ai/ diphthong, which glides over and would "average" to /e/.

It's also common to confuse aspiration and voicing on stops. English initial voiced stops are unaspirated, while initial unvoiced stops are aspirated. Hence, an unvoiced, unaspirated initial stop does not typically occur in English, and can vary in listener interpretation between /t/ or /d/.

This article covers voice onset time (VOT) and how voicing and aspiration play into it:

http://www.linguisticsnetwork.com/tutorials-aspiration-and-v...

Important note is that VOT is negative for voiced, near zero for unvoiced, and positive for aspirated. This measurable phenomenon backs up the fact that unvoiced, unaspirated sounds are basically in between standard English sounds and why you can get differing interpretations.

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