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. But I honestly don't care what other people call them

Weird! I have called them serviettes my whole life and never had a problem.

I would have said napkin, as would my kids. I would also know what you meant by serviette. I doubt my kids would. I guess it depends on how old your server was and what life experience (s)he had. Def not unreasonable to use the term though - it is a commonly used word.

Don't know about the age thing. I know a piece of furniture containing a convenient potty was called a commode. Never seen or needed to utter the words.

Counterpane for a bedspread. Not used now, either.

It's napkins

My kids wouldn't know what a serviette was. It's dated I think.

teafor me - lucky you! As
I said, I'm in Oz and am constantly judged for my accent and "misuse" of language (by local rules). It's tiresome but not just the ghetto of England. Try, as a non- native, speaking French in many parts of France. I cringe at the memory.

Interestingly, your MN nom see plume immediately sends out a certain English vibe.. presumably completely unintended.

I don't use the word server but waitress or waiter but that's another thread. It's just dialect ect

I said, I'm in Oz and am constantly judged for my accent and "misuse" of language (by local rules)

Examples? Australians aren't particularly formal and don't tend to conform to English standards of language/vocab.

I call them serviettes, "napkin" to me sounds American, tissues are for nose blowing! (I'm in Australia, the packaging always says "serviettes" too)

I’m Australian, everyone I know says serviette.
Napkin’s are linen ( or pads although I don’t know anyone who actually calls them that but ‘sanitary napkin’ is what’s on the bins in public toilets!)

Serviettes growing up in 80s London. DM working class DDad public school. We always had them at the table for supper, and they were linen.

Somewhere along the line I changed to napkins for dinner, but I don't know when it happened.

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

For me it is:

Linen - napkin

Soft paper - paper napkin

Crinkly, slightly shiny and belongs in the 1970s - serviette

But there are English speaking countries where a napkin is a sanitary towel. And sanitary towel can be that blue tissue paper you use to clean in offices.

I find myself saying napkins but it feels awkward coming out of my mouth. Napkins does make me think of sanitary towels.

DairyisClosed - I'm exactly the same about serviettes, I thought it was the French word that we used in our bilingual household when I was growing up!

Always called paper ones serviettes and material ones napkins. I'm 42. Even if that wasn't the servers usual word for them, it's very strange not to even recognise the word and know what someone is asking for!!

For me it is: Linen - napkin. Soft paper - paper napkin. Crinkly, slightly shiny and belongs in the 1970s - serviette

^
This.... And given the OP was in McDonalds, serviette was the most appropriate word. I can’t imagine calling those cheap paper things napkins! I think my kids would know this, or at least wouldn’t be completely baffled by the terms... I’ll test them later!

I knew when I saw the word "serviette" in the thread title that 90 percent of the replies would be "I call it napkin". And they say Mumsnet has moved on from its upper middle class origins...

I knew a group of posh girls in uniforms who used to talk about this shit endlessly. Oh do you say settee, I say sofa. I say mirror but my grandma said looking glass and drawing room. I say dinner and tea instead of lunch and dinner, but that's because I'm northern. And so on and so on. And I'd think, listen, you all went to private school and your parents own their own (detached) houses. You're posh enough.

They may not be formal, but very happy to correct my pronunciation..It isn't about me being the wrong class, just wrong. They may not conform, but I'm supposed to conform.

1 - general sniggering about my accent

2 - general differences of pronunciation -Yoghurt would be an obvious one, constantly correcting me.

3 - my using different words (which is what we're discussing here), courgette instead of zucchini, duvet instead of doona etc etc. Also need beating over the head if I get this stuff wrong... Or everyone have a conversation about how hilarious it is.

I have spent years trying to change over, but occasionally wonder why the hell I should. Part of that missing formality is not to voice every criticism you have, rather than letting it go because making people feel inept is incredibly rude (and incredibly, not what I was taught).

Napkins. In my head serviettes is the posh one.

Serviettes is definitely the appropriate term for the ones you grab from places like McDonalds or Greggs.

I would use napkin for a linen one in a proper restaurant or printed paper ones that come in a packet for birthday parties etc.

DDs are 6 and 4 and know what a serviette is.

Some of it might just be if the chap in question is new to the job. When I worked in a pharmacy I had people ask daily for "Milk of Magnesia" - a perfectly acceptable and proper term for a common medicine - and on my first day this totally baffled me as I'd never heard the word before.

And given the OP was in McDonalds, serviette was the most appropriate word

Serviettes is definitely the appropriate term for the ones you grab from places like McDonalds

Except that at McDonalds we call them napkins

hesterton I like the poem, it's a dig at pretentiousness and I can live with that. I'm old, ordinary upbringing, non professional job, never well off. I've never had a lounge. Perhaps it's because it sounds, to me, like a pub - lounge bar. I've always had a sitting or living room.

We had serviettes years ago, but we've evolved into paper napkins. it sure when or why.

@toomuchtooold - apologies. I didn't get the memo.

I call them napkins, and if I was to live in an area that was bothered by the class system* I would be in the working class category. I don't think I've ever used the term serviette.

*delightfully, I live in a small community that doesn't really give two shits about 'class'. The local millionaires will go down the pub with the bus drivers and the builders and the retail workers and you would be hard pushed to tell which was which from appearance and chat.

'Not sure'