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?

I'm only in my 20s and have always used the term serviette... I'd never say napkin!

Serviettes here.

Napkins were what my Grandmother called cloth nappies. Isn't that what nappy is short for?

wanderings
Re the broadsheets, there was a time when he delivered The Sun there by mistake, and the "heavy papers" to the council estate. "I don't know why everyone went so mad. You'd think they would enjoy reading a different paper for a change."

I'd forgotten that part! So funny. I love those books. Adrian would definitely have known the word serviette but while working in McDonald's would dream of linen napkins strewn across Pandora's lap.

wanderings
Re: brand names, "Her face was its usual mask of Max Factor and disappointment with life". Pauline also buys a trouser suit from Next to wear at the Blair election party.

The Adrian quotes are priceless. Must reread. Thank you for brightening up a wet bank holiday weekend.

Serviettes are paper, napkins are f

Fabric

steamcloud sense of humour bypass or just an excuse to UK bash? I don't think anyone is SERIOUS about this, it's interesting and amusing

Have a very well developed sense of humour thank you Davros!

Not UK bashing. Every country has its good and bad points. I've just enjoyed not having to encounter this sort of thing since leaving London.

I've always called linen napkins, paper serviettes and tissue what I blow my nose on.

Blimey. If you don’t think other countries do this sort of stuff, you’ve never been to Paris or Martha’s Vineyard!

I've visited both and of course they do BertrandRussell.

I just happen to live in a tri-lingual environment now and instead of agonising over whether one should call the WC "toilet" or "lavatory" we are all just relieved to know we are all talking about the same room.

I'm sure someone has probably already said this (too lazy to read the whole thread). It isn't serviettes French for nappy?

I'm the only one who uses napkins here. I often explain what they are at the dinner table to my neanderthals.

AsAProfessionalFekko someone said it's French for sanitary towels.

Jessica Knoll's ''The Luckiest Girl Alive"" is very funny and astute about class markers in New York, although, a lot of them hold true in other places.

Soundsystem - It might be fine, actually. I will admit to being from Irish protestant ancestry and our ''markers'' are different again, ie cupboard instead of press. I think it'll all merge in to Americanism within 25 years though. We'll all of us, upstairs downstairs, Irish, English, young, not so young, all of us will be talking the way Americans talk. It is coming. It is. Your bag will become your purse. And so on. Route will be Rowt. Roll over guys.

My own son pronounces lever not to rhyme with never ever but to rhyme with vowel in diva

MIL refuses to use the word "napkin" as they go on babies' bottoms.

But lever does rhyme with diva - sounds like leaver - in British English. Leh-ver r.w. never is the American version.

I always notice this when American economic commentators - and British ones influenced by their useage - talk about leverage (r.w. ever-idge), when they mean borrowing. (They don't like to say borrow, as it implies debt).

A couple of people have mentioned about funny looks in response to asking for courgettes. Why would that be?!

(Lever definitely rhymes with diva)

Zucchini?

But zucchini is what they call it in America isn’t it? I’ve never heard it called that here. Why would anyone in this country find courgette confusing?

Or am I being UK-centric and those posters are in fact in the US?!

And cilantro for coriander (think it is the Spanish word for it)

I had a boyfriend who called napkins 'serviettes'. Eh? That's napkin in French, not that he spoke French. He also misused capital letters. And he was a cunt. So now every time I hear someone using that term in English for a napkin it never fails to raise my hackles.

A serviette is paper, napkin is linen