Napkin or Serviette in the UK

[purplebagladylovesgin]

I am in the south of England and say napkin for a pressed cloth ‘serviette’ which is usually made from the same fabric as the table cloth. I understood the thin paper ones, that often pop up from a dispenser in fast food places, which are often a single or double leaf of paper are called serviettes.

A heavy pressed cloth napkin in my book is never referred to as a serviette, this seems to me to be a modern interpretation by a younger generation.

A cloth napkin is also where our word for Nappy comes from.

But I've heard this now isn't the case. What do you say? Am I getting this wrong? And what are the heavy more expensive paper ones called? I'd also been calling them napkins as they felt more substantial.

Early Sunday pondering....

@MsTSwift

Other non U words for the unwary - pardon and toilet will make an elderly posh person wince 😁. I read too much jilly Cooper as a teen.

Gosh I hate the word 'toilet', especially when people pronounce it as 'toy-a-lit'!

Napkin. I’ve not ever used ‘serviette’ - that word takes me back to 70s scout hut buffet type events type thought oddly.
I wouldn’t call anything a serviette - those rectangular stainless steel boxes continung hard shiny paper napkins would come closest but even those wouldn’t be a serviette.
Paper napkins are paper napkins.
Paper towels are just that also.
Now In the US there is the ‘sanitary napkin’ complication.

We’ve always said napkins, my mum always said “serviette” was “common”.

@Wabe

As pps have said, it’s a class marker. ‘Napkin’ is U, ‘serviette’ is non-U. Like sitting room/lounge, what/pardon etc.

Wasn't it Jilly Cooper who said she'd rather her children said "Fuck off" than "serviette"?

In polite company, I would call it a napkin or paper napkin. At home, it is, "Oh God, pass me a cloth." Have a very clumsy and seemlingly untrainable six tear old who spills everything and what she doesn't spill, drops or drips down her front and all round her mouth.
Er, living room, sofa, lavatory. My parents use settee or 3 piece suite, toilet, lounge and serviette. They also ask for the 'sweet menu' in restaurants.

@user1495884211

Ooh, we must be posh, we have a courtyard. (Paved bit of drive boxed off by the house wall, fences and garaaage, not garridge, where we keep the bins. )

Do you have a porch or a lobby?

There is a joke about napkin rings. Unfortunately it is rather long.

Napkin here, serviette is a horrid word but I’d use it to describe the paper things in a dispenser.

I’m originally SW, long time in SE and now EMids. I don’t think it’s regional. Everyone I know says the same.

Napkin (Yorkshire)

Napkin and paper napkin. but I shudder at napkin rings

Tell us the joke @PigletJohn!

Birmingham born and bred and we always used napkin.

These days I live in the French-speaking part of the Switzerland and it’s definitely serviette here

Actually, "serviette" makes me think of "oubliette"!

Napkin and paper napkin

I briefly went out with a man who used 'serviette' for a paper napkin. I speak French and he just sounded ridiculous. He also misused capital letters and said archaic words deliberately so I had to dump him.

too bally right osbert

@osbertthesyrianhamster

I briefly went out with a man who used 'serviette' for a paper napkin. I speak French and he just sounded ridiculous. He also misused capital letters and said archaic words deliberately so I had to dump him.

Even reading this is spiking my blood pressure.

NE England

Napkin is cloth

Serviette is paper

Paper Napkin is one of those posh linen paper ones

“Mummy says pardon is a much worse word than fuck” was a cartoon of one small child to another in one of Jillys books 😁😁