Monday, November 22, 2010

Bon mot for the week

"Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper."


Sir Francis Bacon  (1561-1626)
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2 comments:

JES said...

Huh. I wonder what the Elizabethans meant by "supper"? From the context, I'm guessing it was probably the last meal of the day...

In NJ, we always used "dinner" and "supper" interchangeably. But here in the South things aren't that neat (or that clouded, depending on your point of view). If someone says they had X for supper and X for dinner (or vice-versa), they may not be repeating themselves; they may actually have eaten the same thing twice in the same day.

(A quick Google search shows that the confusion finds its way into a lot of ESL-type fora.)

November 22, 2010 11:40 AM
Froog said...

I think 'supper' tends - in most cultures and dialects - to be more late evening than early evening, although there is admittedly a lot of interchangeability with 'dinner' (for the main meal of the day).

I think we can see the point of Bacon's maxim, that he's contrasting 'early' and 'late'. How early and how late (and whether we might also - or instead - call it something else) doesn't really matter.

November 22, 2010 3:33 PM

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