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?

Definitely napkins 😊

My gran says serviettes :)

I would say napkin.

Tissue is soft and for noses.

Napkins here, but I can remember dm using the word serviette in the 70/80's, it sounds like a word that she would have been used back then in a misguided attempt to sound posh.

royal butler says a Serviette is a also piece of cloth or paper and again similar to a napkin but this was used more for meals where you stand up

To me napkins are fabric, serviettes are paper, and tissue is what you use to blow your nose; or the very thin kind is tissue paper, and its used in gift wrapping.

You were NOT being unreasonable

Napkins in my world. Serviette sounds very odd to me, so much if I heard it out of context I might not know what you meant. If you were waving ketchupy fingers at an empty napkin holder I’d work it out though

I would always call the paper ones serviettes and the linen ones napkins.
Me too and tissues are for nose blowing.

I’d call them napkins I think, but my granddad uses the word serviettes.

I'm a serviette girl if it's paper napkin if linen, I also say cruet

I’m in my 30s and I say serviettes too!

Serviettes are paper, the type you get in fast food chains etc. Napkins are the cloth kind you’d have at home or at nicer restaurants.

I've always said serviettes, I'm 27 but my parents were older, very traditional and well spoken - all my friends thought we were "posh"...

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

You'd get a funny look here too.

However, a serviette would be supplied without question.

It's napkin.

Serviette is ...cough...common.

Obv depends on the calibre of the food outlet. Pop up artisanal veggie burger joint = napkin. Greasy mobile fast food outlet at fairground = serviette or your sleeve

U and non-U wasn't really a joke essay - Nancy Mitford was a crashing snob (although it's a bit non-U to be snobby ..) and she wasn't inventing the distinctions, she was reflecting/explaining them. Like the Betjeman poem I guess - it's a joke poem but it reflects language use that Betjeman found genuinely horrendous and was essentially pointers for figuring out who to shun (still v amusing though ...)

A lot of the non-U terms like serviette and toilet are from the French and therefore considered pretentious and social climbing. No worse sin in the English class system than aspiring to a higher class ...

I think of serviettes or paper napkins for the paper ones and napkins for the real ones. Tissues and hankies are for noses.

Was serviette a brand name? Sounds like it.

I know what you mean but do think it's dated. It's very much a WC / LMC term from the post-war era. British baby-boomers use it. Later generations, not much.

Napkins = cloth
Paper napkins = paper

I see Hesterton beat me to the poem. Serviette very much goes with 'pardon me'.

And it's loo
And pudding.

But I am vair posh.

Serviettes, I've always deemed to be paper napkins
Napkins (proper) I've always assumed to be cloth.

British is key, as well as class, though. People with a non-British background wouldn't have heard of serviettes.

If you were in McDonald's then definitely serviettes! Napkins sounds far too posh. I always think napkins are linen and serviettes paper. Most people I know say serviettes unless in a posh(ish) restaurant or at a wedding.

Age 40, ex-Londoner!

But I am vair posh

Liked that!

Nice on Hesterton.

The thing you blow your nose on is a handkerchief, btw, people.

I worked in a catering wholesalers 30 odd years ago. The paper thingies were called serviettes. It was written on the packaging and was called that on the invoices and orders

Was serviette a brand name? Sounds like it. Sounds French or Italian I'm off to look it up now.