Toilet / serviette / couch

[Notallmilsarebad]

This is inspired by the ‘do you want bog’ thread. I saw a few people mention the words toilet, serviette and couch are all words that the middle classes would never say.

I have never heard of this before and I actually thought that saying serviette was the posh way of saying napkin. Is it the other way around? What other words like this are there that I need to learn about?

What, not pardon.

Lounge, except in a/an hotel.

You're going to get all the Mitford fangirls breathlessly posting about words that are U and words that are non-U.

They'll be telling you that you must say looking glass instead of mirror.

afters = lower class
dessert = middle class
pudding = u/middle class / upper class

Lavatory is somewhere you go and Toilet is something you do ...

What is the alternative term? (Australian here, it's always been the lounge or lounge room in my life.)

Sitting room

I actually thought that saying serviette was the posh way of saying napkin. Is it the other way around?

Yes, it's the other around.
Just as saying "lavatory" is posher then saying "toilet".

@Catsmere I find sitting room safest. Drawing room is probably still used in some homes!

@Notallmilsarebad check out "How to Get On in Society" by Sir John Betjamen to amuse yourself with his poking fun at the U/non-U words

@WaitingForSunnyDays thanks - I can't imagine anyone past my mother's generation calling it the sitting room here!

Wonder if my grandmother would have referred to a parlour, or a "best room". Not that those rooms served the same purpose as a modern lounge.

There's an anthropologist who writes books about this sort of thing (David Crystal I think), I'm pretty sure he talks about language and class in one of them and says something along the lines of the upper classes and working classes using the same words (loo, sofa, napkin etc.) and the middle classes using words such as toilet, couch and serviette, possiblythinking it makes them sound posher (I read it ages ago so those might not be exactly what he says).

The Stories of English maybe.

Kate Fox's Watching the English goes into that a little bit, too.

Isn't napkin a cloth starched version, and serviette a paper one?

Fundamentally, I think it's supposed to be that a lot of the words that are considered non-U (by some!) come from French, as they are people trying to sound posher. Hence slaughter house, not abattoir, napkin not serviette, looking glass not mirror etc. I can never remember what mantelpiece is supposed to be though. Chimneypiece? I don't think I've ever heard anyone say that in real life.

I find this stuff fascinating. I agree the middle class are the outlier here, upper and working classes more in common. Cannot stand to here pudding described as a ‘sweet’. I am definitely NOT upper class either 🤣

Fish knives are also a middle class affectation!

I grew up in the what would of been called the underclasses back in the day the sitting room was called the living room. A sofa would of been a couch, we had a green velvet chaise longue though so no idea what that would be class wise.

I always thought it was quite a middle class thing to have enough rooms to name after their function. Dining, sitting, study etc. However with modern open plan living possibly living room will have cycled back into fashion.

Most kids say pudding now, especially for school dinners. Now we say it but was always dessert?

😁

Not that anymore but I think all the words the OP posted are distinctly not-posh. Also lounge.

It’s always been pudding if you were posh

@Getamoveon36 that's an interesting list - my language has always been a mixture of many of those terms (never talked about a settee in my life). I'm probably middle class, though my parents certainly started life as working class.

Are upper and lower middle class still current in Britain?

I think living room is originally American, I think it’s (relatively) classless as if you have one open plan sitting/dining room it’s a bit mad to call it anything else

Toilet-French (and just a not-nice word in my opinion.

Serviette- the 'chav' way of saying napkin.

Couch-American.

Loo/Lavvy, Napkin, Sofa.

And yes, 'What', or 'Sorry' or, 'Mind repeating that please?'
Pardon, again, French although does have roots in Latin too, strictly speaking.

When I was 16 I went to America on an exchange trip and my host family found me saying “toilet” hilarious. I always say now “use the bathroom” or “nip to the loo”. DP says “use the facilities” when he is being sarky.