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Dinner is ready

Posted: Thu Oct 11, 2018 4:39 am
by smallwhite
I'm wondering whether there's any cultural difference. I'm referring to everyday home dinners:

A family member cooks dinner. She announces "dinner is almost ready" and "dinner is now ready" every time. (A) When do you go and sit at the dinner table? (B) When do you believe you're supposed to go and sit there?

Please tick 1 option for (A) and 1 for (B).

Thanks.

Re: Dinner is ready

Posted: Thu Oct 11, 2018 7:00 am
by Jaleel10
Where is the option: She/he says 'Dinner is ready', you fetch your food and then sit in front of your pc/tv :lol:

Re: Dinner is ready

Posted: Fri Oct 12, 2018 7:54 pm
by dampingwire
smallwhite wrote:I'm wondering whether there's any cultural difference. I'm referring to everyday home dinners:

A family member cooks dinner. She announces "dinner is almost ready" and "dinner is now ready" every time.


You started out well, carefully avoiding making a sexist assumption and then blew it with the pronoun :-)

The first time this scene plays out, you sit down when you hear "dinner's ready". You then use a machine learning algorithm to track how "dinner is actually ready" and the calling of "'Dinner's ready" match up and adjust accordingly. With a reasonably efficient algorithm you can probably fine tune your response in just a decade or so ...

Re: Dinner is ready

Posted: Fri Oct 12, 2018 11:57 pm
by smallwhite
dampingwire wrote:
smallwhite wrote:I'm wondering whether there's any cultural difference. I'm referring to everyday home dinners:

A family member cooks dinner. She announces "dinner is almost ready" and "dinner is now ready" every time.


You started out well, carefully avoiding making a sexist assumption and then blew it with the pronoun :-)

The "she" was the non-sexist pronoun that was in fashion before the "they". The "family member" bit was to clarify it wasn't a hired helper who was cooking. I did notice the "she" didn't serve its purpose in this case...

Re: Dinner is ready

Posted: Sat Oct 13, 2018 12:14 am
by smallwhite
In a Cantonese home dinner, all food is served upfront and you don't start eating until everyone is seated and you say enjoy your meal. For answer B "when should you sit", 26% people answered "more than 15 seconds after dinner is now ready". So 26% people are saying one should eat cold food and should make everyone else eat cold food? Either that or a poll like this can't work.

Re: Dinner is ready

Posted: Sat Oct 13, 2018 1:48 am
by Adrianslont
I say, “dinner is almost ready” and I expect/hope people will come to the table/kitchen and say, “Can I help with anything?” Or seeing a lack of cutlery or drinks will swing into action and put those on the table. If I have been organised enough to have the cutlery and drinks in the table, they can help carry plates or sit waiting. If they straggle in, I don’t mind but everyone else will have already started eating. And if they are really slow to the table, I get annoyed.

Edit: typos

Re: Dinner is ready

Posted: Sat Oct 13, 2018 5:11 am
by Ani
When I call "dinner is almost ready" I expect everyone to come into the kitchen and make sure everything is ready -- table properly set, condiments that are needed from the fridge are gotten out, water glasses are filled, etc. Sometimes I expect help with the meal like salad being made.

When I say "dinner is ready", I expect everyone to sit immediately. If someone has "one last thing" to do, I get pretty annoyed. We bring all the food to the table & serve from those dishes. Just because we're a little disorganized (imagine that with 5 kids), my husband or I will start filling kids plates immediately and when everyone is finally sitting, we pause, pray, and then the kids can start to eat. DH and I will finish serving the kids and then serve ourselves.

I think 15 seconds is pretty fast for some families. There are a lot of types of meals where the food will be fine in a minute or five after it is technically ready. Also, if family members are expected to fill their own plates from the kitchen, or if they don't have a tradition of waiting for others before starting to eat, I can pretty easily see how they'd say "more than 15 seconds after dinner is now ready".

Re: Dinner is ready

Posted: Sat Oct 13, 2018 6:46 am
by smallwhite
If the dinner procedure itself requires more than 15 seconds then fine, but if not, there was already an "almost ready" alert for you to start standing by so reacting within 15 seconds of "now ready" should not be a problem. That's partly what my 15 second options refer to - you're standing by.

Re: Dinner is ready

Posted: Sat Oct 13, 2018 10:04 am
by Axon
As Ani mentioned, lots of people I know just filled their own plates from the kitchen and ate on their own schedule. My parents grew up with family dinners and they do regret that it didn't really take hold when my sister and I were growing up.

When we did have occasions to have dinners together, there were still times when we'd wait for people to do one last thing but it wasn't particularly bothersome. However we'd generally be seated within 30 seconds of "dinner is almost ready."

Re: Dinner is ready

Posted: Sat Oct 13, 2018 10:50 am
by smallwhite
Axon wrote:As Ani mentioned, lots of people I know just filled their own plates from the kitchen and ate on their own schedule.

In that case please don't tick anything for question B as it is inapplicable - there's no time one "should" sit.