Serviettes. Did I ask for something strange?

[ALongHardWinter]

There were no serviettes on the stand for sauces,straws etc so I asked the server for some. He gave me a funny look and said 'Some what?' I repeated my request but he still looked blank. So I said 'Tissues?'. He said 'Oh right. I've never heard them called serviettes'. Really? That's what I've always called them. Anyone else encountered a blank look when asking for a supposedly common place item?

Napkins!

Paper napkins.

Napkins!

Were you in the uk? Was the server from somewhere other than the uk do you think?

Yep napkins.

We've always called them serviettes.

Oh! I've always associated the word 'napkins' with the linen ones you get in restaurants!

I think serviettes as a team isn't really used as much as it used to be.

Napkins are American! Perhaps he was American?

Term*

A quick google shows that some UK web sites selling them do also call them serviettes, so you weren't wrong. (Not sure if there are any sites only using that word.)

Yup, napkins

Serviettes sounds really old fashioned to me.

Yes I was in the UK. The server was Asian,I think but spoke perfect English.

According to Nancy Mitford (who died in 1973, so perhaps not the most up to date authority) saying "serviette" is non-U, or not upper class. "Napkin" is the U term.

I would've thought 99.9% of habitual English speakers would know what both words meant, though.

I did once have someone look at me funny in the supermarket when I asked where the courgettes were

Napkin is the word i would use.

(i'm reading it so many times in one place it's losing its meaning )

napkinnapkinnapkin

I've always called them serviette too. I'm not that old, I don't think!

No matter what you call them personally, it's common knowledge that those items are serviettes, napkins or tissues interchangeably.

www.theroyalbutler.co.uk/single-post/2016/03/22/The-Etiquette-of-the-Napkin-v-Serviette

FWIW, Debrett's says "napkins", never "serviettes".

I don't think the young uns will have heard of it. I remember my mum and dad saying it, so I'd have known what you meant OP.

See now for me a tissue is only a blow your nose kind of thing.

I would always call the paper ones serviettes and the linen ones napkins.

I have never called them napkins always serviettes. Napkins makes me think of nappies or are we saying diapers now.