Fish knives and coasters

[seoladair]

Back from ILs again. The fish knives made another appearance (fish pie this time rather than fish-cakes; fish knives still unnecessary IMO!)
Anyway. More etiquette conundrums!
Apparently we're not allowed to refer to the mats we put our wine glasses on as "coasters", and the wine bottle coaster can only be described as a "coaster" not as a "wine bottle coaster". Etiquette experts, is this correct? And if so, why should I care?!!

Do the ILs have a hostess trolley?

Good lord, are your inlaws the Queen and DofE?

Do they courier round an etiquette guideline for you to read over on the way?

Using fish knives for fish isn't pretentious.

Openly disapproving of people who don't follow a secret set of arbitrary rules when invited to your home is exceptionally pretentious.

OP, YANBU

Fish knives and coaster are both naff

Very LMC trying too hard

Goodness, I'd better inform both sets of great grandparents that they're LMC.
Now, should I address them by their titles, Lord and Lady in both cases, or just Great Gran and Grandad.

People who have fish knives have lounges.

And coasters are common because it's common to look as if you care about material things.

And yes, it would be much posher to bung down a newspaper if something looks as if it's going to drip than to bring out a coaster.

The wine wouldn't stay in the bottle long enough to need it's own coaster/mat at mine

Ahhh lifechanger - that's so sweet :) (and truly classy)

Perfectly possible to be a Lord and be LMC or even WC.

What am I supposed to do with the little coaster things that came in set with my new place mats? Should I be standing the wine glasses on them? I've been standing the gravy on one and leaving the rest in the box.

I have a lounge for me and DH and a sitting room for our teenage sons. So I have both bases covered there.

Make a mobile? Use as bird scarers? Mini discuses?

Just back from work...
Thank you - lots of great responses!

I am still in the dark regarding whether ILs are correct in their insistence that "coaster" refers exclusively to the silver thing the wine bottle sits in.

Not in this age group, sweetie.
Oh, and we have a sitting room in which to lounge, not a Lounge.

Kate Fox, in "Watching the English", says that fish knives were/are considered dreadfully non-U because they are a relatively recent innovation and therefore a dead giveaway that you bought, rather than inherited, your cutlery. Properly old family cutlery wouldn't have newfangled things like fish knives in.

And coasters are supposed to be utterly infra-dig because they imply that you don't have servants who know how to get marks out of the varnish on your 18th century furniture but have to polish it yourself !

One mustn't look as if one cares about this sort of thing too much, darling.

Presumably coasters are naff because because every time you dine the table is dressed in white linen which will protect it, so the coasters are superfluous (and the staff can deal with cleaning the redwine stains afterwards).

Meanwhile in the real world, if you don't always use a table cloth but you want to protect a nice wooden table from ring marks then you use coasters, so they are practical. Can't see anything posh about treating a lovely wooden table like shite, not if you want to hand it down to your first born anyway ;)

collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O48546/fish-knife/
From the V&A website. Interesting.

They have given themselves away irredeemably for having a silver thing the wine bottle sits in at all. As far as I'm aware, the thing you refer to has no name!

Yes - Dawn's link shows them to be pretty modern, which supports openers post.

From Dawn's link

Middle-class families would have bought the newly developed utensils, such as fish eaters, marking them out from those who already owned more traditional sets of cutlery. In some circles the innovative cutlery designs were never accepted and have remained a subject for prejudice and exclusion to this day: 'I take him to a French restaurant in the posh bit of Battersea ...We have Dover sole while he gets depressed about the fish knives. "Another ghastly Victorian improvement. No decent home would have fish knives..." '

Aha! Thing Without A Name! I shall refer to the twan next time I go there.
I say MIL, the twan is looking simply exquisite.

I think I shall pronounce twan to rhyme with swan - it sounds posher than twan to rhyme with ran.

Ah Mumsnet, it's great therapy. I usually come back from ILs feeling irritated about something, but threads like this help me not to get too wound up. Thank you ladies!