Tea at Trianon: Dinner vs Supper

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Wednesday, May 9, 2018

Dinner vs Supper

From Wide Open Eats:

When you were a child, were you called in for supper or dinner? Even as interest in the term “supper” has faded, it turns out that there is actually a difference between supper and dinner. Of course, if you were called in for supper, you know this difference well, but if you were from a dinner family, it might not be so obvious. My father’s family from Kentucky and Virginia both referred to it as supper, while my mother’s family from Maryland referred to it as dinner. While many would be apt to say that supper is an especially Southern thing, that’s simply not the case. Let’s start with the basics of the big meal to tackle the dinner/supper conundrum.

Dinner does not imply a time of day and simply references the main meal, or the largest meal, of the day. One can eat dinner at any time, and since there is no time implied (afternoon or evening), dinner has become the modern catch-all term for the evening meal. As Dictionary.com points out, “the word ‘dinner’ comes from the Vulgar Latin word disjējūnāre, meaning ‘to break one’s fast.'” While this is most closely related to breakfast in English, the meaning of dinner still influences how we use it and it has become the most popular word for the largest meal eaten of the day. (Read more.)