Article published in:
English World-Wide
Vol. 40:2 (2019) ► pp. 170–201

Supper or dinner?

Sociolinguistic variation in the meals of the day

| University of Toronto
| University of Toronto
The English words for daily meals constitute a complex lexical variable conditioned by social and linguistic factors. Comparative sociolinguistic analysis of 884 speakers from more than a dozen locations in Ontario, Canada reveals a synchronic system with social correlates that are reflexes of the British and American founder populations of the province. Toronto and Loyalist settlements in southern Ontario use the highest rates of dinner while northerners with European and Scots-Irish roots use supper. Dinner is taking over as the dominant form among younger speakers, exposing a cascade pattern (Trudgill 1972; Labov 2007) that is consistent with sociolinguistic typology (Trudgill 2011).
Keywords: language change, language variation, lexical variation, Canadian English, sociolinguistics, cascade model
Published online: 13 June 2019
https://doi.org/10.1075/eww.00027.jan
References

References

Abel, Kerry Margaret
2006 Changing Places: History, Community, and Identity in Northeastern Ontario. Montreal: McGill University Press.Google Scholar
Bates, Douglas, Martin Mächler, Ben Bolker, and Steve Walker
2015 “Fitting Linear Mixed-Effects Models Using lme4”. Journal of Statistical Software 67: 1–48. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Belleville Oral History Archive
1975 “Opportunities for Youth 1975.” Hastings County Historical Society. City of Belleville, Ontario. Canada.Google Scholar
Boberg, Charles
2010 The English Language in Canada: Status, History and Comparative Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Brinton, Laurel J., and Elizabeth Closs Traugott
2005 Lexicalization and Language Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Britain, David
2016 “Which Way to Look?: Perspectives on ‘Urban’ and ‘Rural’ in Dialectology”. In Emma Moore, and Chris Montgomery, eds. A Sense of Place: Studies in Language and Region. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 171–187.Google Scholar
Cassidy, Frederic G., and Joan Houston Hall
eds. 1985–2013 Dictionary of American Regional English (DARE). 6 Vols. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Chambers, J. K.
1994 “An Introduction to Dialect Topography”. English World-Wide 15: 35–53. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2004 “ ‘Canadian Dainty’: The Rise and Decline of Briticisms in Canada”. In Raymond Hickey, ed. Legacies of Colonial English: Studies in Transported Dialects. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 224–263.Google Scholar
2007 “Geolinguistic Patterns in a Vast Speech Community.” In Wladyslaw Cichocki, Wendy Burnett, and Louise Beaulieu, eds. Modern Dialect Studies. Proceedings of Methods XII. Special issue of Linguistica Atlantica 28: 27–36.Google Scholar
[ p. 198 ]
2010 “English in Canada”. In Elaine Gold, and Janice McAlpine, eds. Canadian English: A Linguistic Reader. Queen’s University: Strathy Language Unit, 1–37. http://​www​.queensu​.ca​/strathy​/apps​/OP6v2​.pdf (accessed December 21, 2015).
Chambers, J. K., and Peter Trudgill
1998 Dialectology (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Chambers, J. K., and Chia-Yi Tony Pi
2004 Atlas of Dialect Topography (On-Line). http://​dialect​.topography​.chass​.utoronto​.ca (accessed May 1, 2018).
Clark, John O. E.
1987 Word Perfect. London: Harrap.Google Scholar
Cooke, Nathalie
2009 “Home Cooking: The Stories Canadian Cookbooks Have to Tell”. In Nathalie Cooke, ed. What’s to Eat? Entreés in Canadian Food History. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 228–244.Google Scholar
Crystal, David T.
2007 “On having Lunch/Dinner”. DCBLOG November 12 2007 <http://​david​-crystal​.blogspot​.ca​/2007​/11​/on​-having​-lunchdinner​.html (accessed May 1, 2018).
Dollinger, Stefan
2015 The Written Questionnaire in Social Dialectology: History, Theory, Practice. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Google Books Ngram Viewer
http://​books​.google​.com​/ngrams (accessed October 2, 2017).
Heritage, Stuart
2012 “Tea with Grayson Perry. Or is it Dinner, or Supper?” The Guardian August 3 2012 <https://​www​.theguardian​.com​/lifeandstyle​/2012​/aug​/03​/tea​-with​-grayson​-perry​-supper​-dinner (accessed May 1, 2018).
Jankowski, Bridget L., and Sali A. Tagliamonte
2017 “A Lost Canadian Dialect: The Ottawa Valley 1975–2013”. In Tanja Säily, Arja Nurmi, Minna Palander-Collin, and Anita Auer, eds. Exploring Future Paths for Historical Sociolinguistics. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 239–274. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Labov, William
1972 Sociolinguistic Patterns. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
1994 Principles of Linguistic Change. Vol. 1: Internal Factors. Cambridge and Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.Google Scholar
2001 Principles of Linguistic Change. Vol. 2: Social Factors. Malden and Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.Google Scholar
2003 “Pursuing the Cascade Model”. In David Britain, and Jenny Cheshire. Social Dialectology: In Honour of Peter Trudgill. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 9–22. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2007 “Transmission and Diffusion”. Language 83: 344–387. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2010 Principles of Linguistic Change. Vol. 3: Cognitive and Cultural Factors. Oxford: Blackwell. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Lehmann, Gilly
2002 “Meals and Mealtimes, 1600–1800”. In Harlan Walker, ed. The Meal. Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 2001 Devon: Prospect Books, 139–154.Google Scholar
Malkiel, Yakov
1983 “Some Second and Third Thoughts on Luso-Hispanic almuerzo/almoço ‘lunch’ with Special Attention to Older Sp. yantar/Ptg. jantar ‘dinner’”. Romance Philology, 36: 393–403.Google Scholar
Marckwardt, Albert
1958 American English. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
McArthur, Tom
1981 Longman Lexicon of Contemporary English. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Mencken, Henry Louis
1945 The American Language. Supplement I. An Inquiry into the Development of English in the United States. New York: Knopf.Google Scholar
1977 The American Language: An Inquiry into the Development of English in the United States. Fourth ed. / First Paperback ed. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.Google Scholar
[ p. 199 ]
Oxford English Dictionary (OED) Online
. Oxford University Press, March 2018 (accessed May 14, 2018).Google Scholar
“
Portrait of the Canadian Population in 2006: Subprovincial Population Dynamics, Greater Golden Horseshoe” 2006 Statistics Canada. http://​www12​.statcan​.ca​/census​-recensement​/2006​/as​-sa​/97​-550​/p14​-eng​.cfm (accessed May 1, 2018).
Pringle, Ian, and Enoch Padolsky
1981 “The Irish Heritage of the English of the Ottawa Valley”. English Studies in Canada 7: 338–352. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
1983 “The Linguistic Survey of the Ottawa Valley”. American Speech 58: 325–344. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
R Development Core Team
2007 R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing. Vienna: R Foundation for Statistical Computing. http://​www​.R​-project​.org (accessed on September 6, 2018)
Rodríguez-González, Félix
1993 “The Naming of Meals”. English Today 36: 45–52. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
1999 “Sociolinguistic Variation in the Names of Meals”. Cuadernos de Filología Inglesa 8: 97–116.Google Scholar
Scargill, Matthew H., and Henry J. Warkentyne
1972 “The Survey of Canadian English: A Report.” English Quarterly 5: 47–104.Google Scholar
Statistics Canada
2001–2016 Canada Census. http://​www12​.statcan​.gc​.ca​/census​-recensement​/index​-eng​.cfm (accessed May 14, 2018).
Strobl, Carolin, James D. Malley, and Gerhard Tutz
2009 “An Introduction to Recursive Partitioning: Rationale, Application, and Characteristics of Classification and Regression Trees, Bagging, and Random Forests”. Psychological Methods 14: 323–48. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Tagliamonte, Sali A.
2003–2006 “Linguistic Changes in Canada Entering the 21st Century”. Research Grant. Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). #410-2003-0005.Google Scholar
2007–2010 “Directions of Change in Canadian English”. Research Grant. Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). #410-070-048.Google Scholar
2010–2013 “Transmission and diffusion in Canadian English”. Standard Research Grant #410-101-129. Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRCC).Google Scholar
2012 Variationist Sociolinguistics: Change, Observation, Interpretation. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
2013 “Comparative Sociolinguistics”. In J. K. Chambers, and Natalie Schilling-Estes, eds. Handbook of Language Variation and Change (2nd ed.). Malden: Blackwell, 128–156. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2013–2018 “Social Determinants of Linguistic Systems”. Insight Grant: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.Google Scholar
Tagliamonte, Sali A., and R. Harald Baayen
2012 “Models, Forests and Trees of York English: Was/were Variation as a Case Study for Statistical Practice”. Language Variation and Change 24: 135–178. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Trudgill, Peter J.
1972 “Linguistic Change and Diffusion”. Language in Society 3: 229–252.Google Scholar
2011 Sociolinguistic Typology: Social Determinants of Linguistic Complexity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
[ p. 200 ]
Vaux, Bert, and Scott A. Golder
2003 “The Harvard Dialect Survey”. Cambridge: Harvard University Linguistics Department. http://​dialect​.redlog​.net​/staticmaps​/q​_96​.html. (accessed May 1, 2018).
Visser, Margaret
1991 Rituals of Dinner: The Origins, Evolution, Eccentricities, and Meaning of Table Manners. Toronto: Harper Collins.Google Scholar
Wolfram, Walt
1997 “Dialect in Society”. In Florian Coulmas, ed. Handbook of Sociolinguistics. Oxford: Blackwell, 107–126. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Zaslow, Morris
1973 “Does Northern Ontario Possess a Regional Identity?” Laurentian University Review 4: 9–20.Google Scholar