Pretty much, in the parts of the South that I and my family are from. Dinner is the midday meal, generally the large meal - supper was usually leftovers from lunch - at least back in the day of working the farm and such.


>Curious:
>Do you mean that dinner/supper is more common than lunch/dinner in rural areas ?
>
>>You must get around more than me because I haven't heard either of those. One thing I have noticed is that dinner vs. supper is more of a rural thing than a northern vs. southern thing.
>>
>>Two things in this area that took me by surprise, coming especially from southern Illinoisans, were water being pronounced "warter" and roof rhyming with "woof." If you aren't from around here you may underestimate what a tall state Illinois is. The southern end is practically in Dixie. And then Illinois meets Missouri halfway across the Mississippi River, entering a state pronounced Missouruh.
>>
>>Today's useful U.S. geographic fact: the Mississippi is not our longest river. It's the Missouri.
>>
>>>Putting the 'a' in front of words like water - or as I've heard more commonly up North; breakfast/lunch/dinner- is regional. Particularly in the Northern Plains states you'll hear things like "Are you taking a lunch?" or "You need a breakfast first".
>>>
>>>>BTW, I said that backward from what I was thinking. Soot is singular and doesn't have a plural. At least, I can't make any sense out of saying "soot(s) are ...". And then of course, there are the ones that change the spelling to creatge plurals:
>>>>
>>>>index - indices
>>>>oasis - oases
>>>>
>>>>or how about
>>>>
>>>>water - you have to love the liquid nouns. "have some water" - some? is that plural? Even when someone says, "I'm getting a water", which sounds weird anyway, they really mean a 'bottle of water' or a 'glass of water', not really 'a water'. What would a single water be? But in our innocence, we still have 'waters' which is really singular sort of, but isn't the same sort of water as the 'glass of water'. "Going to the dead sea for the waters". Plural? not really. If I hadn't grown up with this stuff, I'd hate to have to learn it later in life.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>That's because we stole the most interesting language rules from every other language; and the reason why I feel sorry for anyone learning English as a second (third, fourth, twelfth) language.
>>>>>
>>>>>To paraphrase "Young Frankenstein"
>>>>>
>>>>>"Igor, just WHO'S grammer rules did you bring me?"
>>>>>"Ah..yes..Abby something...Normal...Abby Normal, yes that's it"
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Afaic it's mice and lice that are special. Not to mention feet from foot while 'soot' is plural and doesn't even have a singular and deer and moose which are both singular and plural. English is a very weird language.