I'm not a hick...I'm correct

So I'm back from my big, bad, fly-by-the-night trip to the heartland, to "The Good Life", that's right....Nebraska. (I'll have more on my trip later.)

I was talking to Spanks McDuders last night on the phone, we stayed at her casa in the sprawling metroplex of McCook. (pop. 7,994) She wasn't there for the weekend, she decided to take off to California to visit another friend of ours, so we had the run of the place. On the phone last night she asked me. "Um, so I come home, and my dictionary is out, left open to the 'L's' what's that all about?"

It took me a minute to remember, you see after spending the day with the family on Saturday, Mr. Vasey and I retired to the hacienda de Spanky with an 18 pack of Coors Light. I distinctly remember getting the dictionary out but I couldn't remember what we were looking up...

"The only L word that came to my head, that the two of you would be looking up was lesbian, but it was open to the 'lu' page."

Hmmmm still thinking....no we weren't looking up lesbian, pretty sure we both know what the meaning of that is..."Oh yes!" I told her. It all started coming back to me, "we got into a discussion about accents and how, I don't have an accent becuase I'm from the midwest," and he, Mr. Vasey that is, said that even though I'm from the midwest there are things that I say that are distinctly midwestern. Like how I put the word "right" in strange places in sentences, or I say "pop," and not soda or what the people round here call Coke, even if they want a Pepsi they say Coke (now tell me how intelligent that is?) and how I refer to lunch as lunch, supper as supper and dinner can be either or.

Mr. Vasey was brought up that dinner is always the evening meal. And brought up to believe that is correct way to refer to the evening meal. Referring to it as 'supper' is just country in his opinion.

It actually brings me back to a time when his mother called to ask me over for Christmas Dinner one time....the conversation went something like this.

"So I was wondering if you would like to join us for Christmas dinner?"

"Sure," I say. "Would that be dinner-lunch or dinner-supper?"

She, clearly confused by my question, responds. "Well, dinner-dinner."

Me, clearly confused by her response, had to ask again, "So...like dinner at night or like dinner at noon-time?"

"Well...dinner..." she says.

Finally we get it figured out, she meant dinner, the evening meal....

Well I have always been brought up that dinner was the big meal, or a fancy meal. Lunch is just lunch, you have a samich or maybe a burger or something, but if you have a roast for the noon meal, where the whole family sits down and eats, that's a dinner.

For instance, after mass on Sunday we would have a Sunday dinner, a roast or some other hearty meal, and for supper on those days we would have popcorn and milk...num num...

But there would be occasions where the big, sit down meal would be the evening meal, so instead of it just being a supper of goulash or spaghetti, we would have pork chops, mashed potatoes and gravy or something, that again is a dinner.

Just to be clear breakfast is always breakfast as the morning meal, that is unless its brunch.

So that's the way I've always referred to dinner, the big meal, the sit down meal. And Mr. Vasey thought I was wrong. So we looked it up in the dictionary. And just so that everyone else can be clear. Here are the definitions we found.

Lunch: a light midday meal between breakfast and dinner; luncheon.

Supper: the evening meal, often the principal meal of the day.

Dinner: the main meal of the day, eaten in the evening or at midday.

So there. Never doubt a midwesterner when it comes to issues of speech...

Take that "ya'll" I'm fixin ta open a can o woop ass up in herra.