This is not my “ Brunch Is For Jerks' soapbox. I know plenty of nice people who seem to survive on a steady supply of weekend French toast outings alone, so I’ll keep the judgment to myself on that front.

Instead, I’ll just say: I don’t understand brunch. This is not a philosophical conundrum or some type of veiled, passive aggressive question. It’s merely that the concept of brunch eludes me.

What is it? The name suggests that it’s a combination of breakfast and lunch…but doesn’t that just make it a late breakfast, and therefore, still breakfast? If I’m planning on eating brunch—whatever that means—should I still eat breakfast, or do I have to wait around? What happens if it’s after the time I’d eat lunch? Is it still brunch because it’s on a Sunday? Would it be acceptable if I called every meal eaten on Sunday “brunch?”

And then there are the deeper cut questions, like “If I eat lunch at 11:30am on a weekday, is it brunch?” That seems like a nice way to jazz up your average workday, but it also brings me to another question: Does brunch have to be fancy? If I stumble out of my apartment at 11am on Sunday and mumble “Baconeggandcheese” at the guy in the neighborhood bodega, have I sufficiently brunched?

Has all of this evolved just because people enjoy saying the word brunch? If so, should we brainstorm more portmanteaus to make other things—mammograms, or maybe flossing—more cult-like and enjoyable? Am I onto something here?

Please chime in. Could use all the help I can get.

—Emily Ferber

Photo via Kate Owen.