onizuka-gto wrote:yeah, but at my school they call it the "school dinner hall"
when someone says "cafeteria" i think of cafe, which i think of coffee, which makes me think europeans.
which brings us back to point that my university had a "cafeteria" but in reality it was a "canteen".
So what is right? so we use a word that is common but misused, or a word that is correct but not as common?
In American vernacular, "cafeteria" would be the correct term here. It corresponds almost exactly to the probably more recognized term "mess," as in a military mess hall (except with a cafeteria, the diner pays). It can also be used to describe any type of restaurant that is laid out the same way (diner stands in line in front of the food, the server dishes out the diner's selection, the diner pays and carries the plates of food on a tray to a table to eat).
A "canteen", in the common American usage, is a container of water, specifically the type of container of water someone carries with them on a hike or similar trip.
Those are the primary American uses of those two words, and especially in the case of "cafeteria", the only (a café, pronounced with the accent, but usually spelled without, is similar, but different enough not to be confusing). In most parts of the country, the only time you're likely to find the word "canteen" used to refer to a dining establishment is as a slang pronunciation of "cantina" in an Old West movie, and a cantina hardly fits the context of the quoted passage.
I have no idea how the definition of "cafeteria" may change outside the US, but am fully (now) aware of the other usage of "canteen", and am slightly bemused to see that its Wikipedia entry redirects to the entry for "cafeteria", which makes no mention of the word "canteen."
I suggest using "lunchroom" to avoid confusion.
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