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?

Serviette makes me cringe. I made myself unlearn that, along with 'tea' for evening meal, when I realised that my best friend's family, who I was rather in awe of, used different words which sounded more proper, somehow. I was eight years old or so and I doubt I would have been judged too harshly had I continued to say serviette and tea, but I wanted to be like the clever, interesting people. Now I've come full circle and have to say serviette again because we live in France, but I still wince a bit.

I'm chuckling at the Adrian Mole quotes on here. Around the time I learned to say napkin, I tossed aside that book in disappointment because it wasn't about actual moles, like Wind in the Willows!

Off topic, but does anyone know how to tell the difference between a pack of sanitary towels in France and a pack of incontinence pads? I'm only in need of the former (so far) but have no idea which one I'm actually buying and am too embarrassed to ask!

"Apparently, the correct term is always napkin and these can be made of paper or cloth."

And then you posted a web link from a royal butler. Well, most of us are not royal butlers so it's not for them to dictate to us what word we use. Are you really saying the Costa waiter didn't know the word serviette because he was too upper class? Doesn't make any sense does it?

Loads of people call them serviettes.

Where I’m from a napkin is made of cloth and a serviette is disposable.

Oh and I’m only 22

I'm guessing the Costa guy didn't know what a serviette was because he was foreign, and therefore classless. I'm not sure where that leaves the Royal family!

Agustarella all I can say is that the Tena Lady is in similar packaging and called something like cushoire something. Like here sanitary towels are in similar and thinner packaging. It's pretty bloody obvious.

linguisticus-files-wordpress-com.cdn.ampproject.org/i/s/linguisticus.files.wordpress.com/2017/10/u-and-non-u.png

U is posh
Non U is not.

Check where serviette is...

HRTFT but has anybody said "First world problems " yet?

U is posh
Non U is not.

I'm pretty sure that describing things as 'posh' is Non-U.

Good grief it was shorthand. 🙄

Napkins sounds like something Nanny would say to Queenie in Blackadder

"Time for a little napkins deary"

Welcome to Tatler Magazine. This site uses cookies. To find out more, read our privacy policy.

FEATURES
28 words that only posh people use...

Oh look - Tatler uses the word.

Serviettes, napkins are something they used before pampers ...

Northern working class here, serviettes for paper, napkins for cloth.
Really couldn't give a shit what anyone thinks of my terminology. Wipe your chops with whatever you see fit, it's no biggy.

I appear to have hit a nerve, Rose.

Agree with pp that serviettes are paper, napkins are cloth.

It honestly doesn’t matter what your call them. There is no right or wrong. But there is a “club” of people in the UK who hold a disproportionate amount of power and control, and who have over the years invented a set of rules so that the can tell who is or is not a member of that club.

Realistically, for most people it will never matter. But, in the spirit of knowing stuff is better than not knowing stuff, knowing that the “rules” means you can decide whether you want to “break” them or not.

And you don’t have to get very high up in many industries before you come across people for whom this shit matters. My dd recently went for an interview for maternity cover at a private school which included lunch and admitted reluctantly that she was very pleased that I had insisted on her knowing about formal table manners, even if she didn’t use them very often.

It’s all bullshit. We all know that. But it’s better to know the rules and break them deliberately than not know them and be judged without knowing why.

Always say napkin, just in case.

I agree. For a while in the uk I wondered if I was experiencing anti Irishness but no, no, it was never that. At time, likes millions and millions of others, I experienced a bit of classism that I was aware of, maybe more so because I had gone down a perceived class by moving from Ire to UK.

So I agree being aware of rules helps you at least know what game you've been entered in to. What the rules are, even though you didn't vote for this game.

Bertrand, this is a genuine question, but how do you feel about your dd applying for a job in a private school given your strong opposition to such institutions?

It isn't serviettes French for nappy?

No, they're couches. Tissues (for the nose or face) are mouchoirs
And produits sanitaires are serviettes. Mine have aillettes.

Serviette is French for towel- of the bath or hand variety, as far as I’m aware (see my earlier post).

"Bertrand, this is a genuine question, but how do you feel about your dd applying for a job in a private school given your strong opposition to such institutions?"

Well, obviously I have disowned her. . It's a good job and perfect experience for her. What do you think I should feel?

Calm down, Lemony dear. Call them face-wipe tissues if you want, just don't expect everyone else to know what you're talking about. My point is that napkin is the official term, so that's what most people use. Ikea calls them paper napkins. I'm a mid-twenties working class midlander and I have always called them napkins. My DH is a working class northerner who had never even heard of a serviette before I mentioned. So no, I'm not suggesting the Costa man was a royal butler, just that not everyone shares your colloquialisms.