A few days ago, while I was going over my e-mail archives for my column in The Manila Times, my eye was drawn to this postscript from a Filipina reader who had written me from London over six years ago: “Oh, also, they call lunch here ‘dinner’ and dinner, ‘tea.’” I didn’t give this remark much thought at the time, thinking that the reader—perhaps oppressed by the thick fog that often blankets London—simply had mixed up her English mealtime vocabulary. This time, though, the discordant bit of information intrigued me and I casually mentioned it to my wife Leonor.

Leonor, who grew up and had her primary and secondary education in once-British-controlled Malaysia, readily agreed that my reader had probably mixed up her terms. She said that from what she remembers, the British call dinner “supper” and reserve the term “tea” for late-afternoon refreshments consisting of tea along with sandwiches, crackers, or cookies. Of course, she said she was talking about her Malaysian experience, not that of Great Britain itself, so I decided to further clarify this vocabulary issue at least to my own satisfaction.

As I was to discover, one’s English meal vocabulary depends as much on class distinctions as on national and regional geography. If you are Philippine-based all your life, though, there should be no problem at all. In our supposedly egalitarian democratic society, the American English for mealtime has long been in vogue: “breakfast” for early morning, “lunch” for midday, and “dinner” for evening—period. But when you travel from one English-speaking country to another, you’ll be surprised to find that the language for mealtime makes nothing less than tectonic changes.

To avoid confusing ourselves, though, let’s first talk about the commonality of terms. On “breakfast,” there’s broad agreement that it refers to the first meal of the day, especially when taken in the morning. It’s also universally accepted that “dinner” refers to “the principal meal of the day”; in fact, this English word comes from the French dejeuner, which means “to dine,” although “dinner” before the Middle Ages could either be a morning or midday meal.

In England today, however, the terms for mealtime appear to be largely determined along class lines. From what I can gather, at midday the upper class takes “lunch” while the working class takes “dinner.” At about 4:30 p.m., the middle class and the upper class take “tea,” which is a light meal of tea and finely cut sandwiches. Then, by early evening, the working class takes “supper,” a meal of bread and “dripping” (fat and juices drawn from meat during cooking)—usually their very last meal for the day. At about this time, the middle class and upper class take “high tea” (a fairly substantial meal), followed at about 8 o’clock with “dinner.”

Within the United Kingdom itself, however, even this class-determined meal vocabulary changes depending on regional location. I gathered that people in northern England almost invariably refer to their midday meal as “dinner” and their evening meal as “tea”—this confirms my Filipina reader’s postscript—but those in southern England call their midday meal “lunch,” their light afternoon meal “tea,” and their evening meal “dinner.” In the English midlands, though, it appears that “dinner” is always the evening meal, and that people use the term almost interchangeably with “tea.” In Ireland, in contrast, “lunch” is the midday meal and evening meals are either “tea” for large ones and “supper” for light ones, while “dinner” is only used to refer to a formal meal.

As most of us know, of course, the English mealtime vocabulary varies very little over at the United States. “Tea” hardly figures in the language, and whether you are in New England, in the Midwest, or in Texas, it’s “lunch” for the midday meal, with “dinner” and “supper” often used interchangeably for the evening meal or the final meal of the day. (March 7, 2009).

From the weekly column “English Plain and Simple” by Jose A. Carillo in The Manila Times, March 7, 2009, © 2009 by the Manila Times Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

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In these troubled and troubling times when people’s utterances—whether expressed in private or aired through the broadcast, cellular, or print media—are increasingly being viewed with mutual suspicion, it would be useful to make a quick review of the grammar of reported speech. This would require a reacquaintance with how verbs behave in the normal sequence of tenses and in the so-called exceptional sequence. People should clearly understand this behavior of verbs so they can have a clearer, unbiased perception of the chronology and logic of fast-breaking events as they happen in time.

Reported speech or indirect speech is, of course, simply the kind of sentence someone makes when he or she reports what someone else has said. For instance, a company’s division manager might have told a news reporter these exact words: “I am resigning to join the competition.” In journalism, where the reporting verb is normally in the past tense, that statement takes this form in reported speech: “The division manager said he was resigning to join the competition.”

The operative verb in utterances obviously can take any tense depending on the speaker’s predisposition or intent. However, when an utterance takes the form of reported speech and the reporting verb is in the past tense, the operative verb of that utterance generally takes one step back from the present into the past: the present becomes past, the past usually stays in the past, the present perfect becomes past perfect, and the future becomes future conditional. This is the so-called normal sequence-of-tenses rule in English grammar.

Now let’s review how this rule applies when that division manager’s utterance is stated in the various tenses:

Present tense to past tense. Utterance: “I am resigning to join the competition.” Reported speech: “The division manager said he was resigning to join the competition.”

Past tense to past tense. Utterance: “I resigned to join the competition.” Reported speech: “The division manager said he resigned to join the competition.” (The past tense can usually be retained in reported speech when the intended act is carried out close to its announcement; if much earlier, the past perfect applies.)

Present perfect to past perfect tense. Utterance: “I have resigned to join the competition.” Reported speech: “The division manager said he had resigned to join the competition.”       

Future tense to future conditional tense. Utterance: “I will resign to join the competition.” Reported speech: “The division manager said he would resign to join the competition.”

The exceptional sequence. There is, however, one very rare instance when the operative verb in reported speech does not conform to this normal sequence of tenses. In the so-called exceptional sequence, which applies if the information being reported is permanently or always true, the operative verb in reported speech doesn’t take a tense backward but retains the present tense.

For instance, to prove a point, the division manager might have surprised his subordinates by saying an eternal verity like this: “A square has four sides of equal length.” This time, using the normal sequence-of-tenses rule to report that statement would be silly: “Our division manager said a square had four sides of equal length.” All squares will forever have four sides of equal length, so the exceptional sequence applies: “Our division manager said a square has four sides of equal length.”

But should the reported speech for habitual things also follow the exceptional sequence rule? Say, for instance, that right after declaring his intention to resign, that same division manager adds: “I am always loyal to the company I work for.” Would this reported speech for that utterance be correct: “He said he is always loyal to the company he works for”? Definitely not. By his very words, the speaker has shown that loyalty is such a fickle thing, so the normal sequence-of-tenses rule applies to his reported speech: “He said he was always loyal to the company he worked for.” (March 6, 2006)

From the weekly column “English Plain and Simple” by Jose A. Carillo in The Manila Times, March 6, 2006, © 2006 by the Manila Times Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

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