Tea, anyone?

I've always used teatime.

Ditto.

Once again, I will offer my opinion as a sacrifice, before Someone Who Actually Knows can clarify. [ETA: with respect to Carmy and WildScribe, there weren't any other posts when I started typing my response.]

I infer different meanings, as follows*:

"teatime" is a time of day or an adjective, e.g. "daytime soaps", "nighttime revels", "Christmastime"

"tea time" indicates, say, an appropriate or opportune time to do something, e.g. "it's clobberin' time!", "home time" (as in, time to go home)

"tea-time" is used when it's time that's the focus, e.g. "old-time rock and roll", "two-timing so-and-so"

I'll be interested to see what others say. Thanks for posing the question!


*: But this is just me

Tea time. Nothng would otherwise indicate this is a compound word. Also, hyphenation would mean it modifies something else (e.g, team-time biscuits).

jt

Tea time. Two words. Teatime is not in the Collins or Oxford. But in "tea, anyone?" It is tea, not tea time. You are asking them for a cuppa or a meal. You don't say "dinner time, anyone?" do you?

Teatime

As I understand it, "tea time," "teatime," and "tea-time" are all acceptable, and each can be found in various dictionaries, but none are really used much in England or anywhere else when the person means "time to drink tea." Use of the hyphen is the rarest of the three, but still makes its way into a number of dictionaries, titles of books, etc.

"Tea time," (Or teatime/tea-time), is generally used by restaurants, or others trying to sell or promote tea. Sort of alone the lines of "anytime is teatime." And each is used is such questions as "What time is tea time in London?"

But if you're actually talking about a time during the day to drink tea, there's tea, which often means "a meal," and can, for example, mean breakfast or lunch. Then you have Afternoon tea (low tea), usually at 4:00 P.M., and High tea, which is dinner.

At any rate, it sounds like you don't care about the customs of tea, but about the title for a novel, so any of the three versions will do.

Tea as a meal never means breakfast or lunch. It means 'dinner'. Well, an evening meal.

If someone asks another round for tea, they're expected in the early evening, never breakfast time or anywhere near noon!

Note to fellow English people: Don't invite James for tea!

James, you are officially invited to my place for tea. Just do let me know before you come, so I can rush out and buy some scones, OK?

Shame on you, Mark. You're in the states now, Buddy! Time for a good cup of joe.

Douglas Adams has it: The Long, Dark Tea-Time of the Soul.

Sandi LeFaucheur said:

Note to fellow English people: Don't invite James for tea!

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What about our Scottish members?

Judg said:

James, you are officially invited to my place for tea. Just do let me know before you come, so I can rush out and buy some scones, OK?

Click to expand...

But if James thinks tea is breakfast, you may need porridge!

scarletpeaches said:

What about our Scottish members?

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Argh! Sorry, Scarlet, that's the second time I've done that. I'm hanging my head in shame.

Sandi LeFaucheur said:

But if James thinks tea is breakfast, you may need porridge!

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I make a pretty mean porridge...

I'd like a cup of tea. No, scratch that. A mug!

Come on over! (The plane/boat tickets are on you, though.)

This is new to me, even after being in the UK for 17 years now. You definetly learn new data every day

I thought Teatime always consisted of a mid-afternoon Pot of Earl grey, with a delicious plate of jam or cream scones...

...ohhh yes, that'll be one mug of tea for me too pleaseeeee and an oat biscuit if you have one

Yes, I'd agree with Ana, but maybe it's a southern English thing. Certainly in Scotland, "tea" is an evening meal - same in the northern UK, I believe. But where I come from (the West Country) tea was served at about 4pm (teatime) and before supper at 6.

It also boils down to "class". To call your evening meal "tea" and your midday meal "dinner" is a working class thing. Upper class folk call midday meal "lunch" and evening meal "dinner" with "tea" in between. (To muddy the waters further, in schools, if you buy a meal it's a school dinner, but if you bring your own it's a packed lunch.)

Wow! Sorry, I'm just surprised. This was a running theme on Are You Being Served.

Oh and I think I get where the OP's coming from. Since Texas Tea is another way of saying oil(guess who watched The Beverly Hillbillies), does this mean they're going for a play on words? I better just give the link a click. Oh it's not a link. So now I just have to guess. Does it involve an oil heiress?

When I looked it up, I saw it as tea-time. With a hyphen.

Cool . So now how to choose? Or have you chosen? So presumably James is right, and the others are just teasing him. Why not try each version in different fonts? I know the publisher chooses the font, but whichever version you find visually appealing in the most fonts should be the winner right?

Wait a minute. Don't they have pheasants in England? Haha, a wild pheasant chase! I like how your imagination works . Wait another minute. Maybe my imagination veered off the road and I just don't have a clue. Oh well, it's fun both ways .