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?

Bevnaps? wow. Can we make it catch on?

mojito and a bevnap

I thought it would be compresse in fRench? I know it's compresas in Spanish and I tend to frenchify words.

I say serviettes

ah well, I've just googled and it's serviettes sanitaires

Pardonne!

I think 'serviettes' is a bit 1970s, my children certainly would not use this word.

Serviettes = paper napkins but never tissues, that's just wrong and wierd

I say napkins whether it’s the cloth or paper variety. I might sometimes say ‘paper napkin’ but wouldn’t usually bother.

I understand ‘serviette’ but to me it just sounds a bit odd - like someone is trying to dress up a very basic item with an unnecessarily frilly word.

Bevnap 😂😂 I'm definitely weaving that into conversation tomorrow.

I think the reason “serviette” is frowned on as common is because it’s a French word. After the Napoleonic wars, it was considered more patriotic to use English terms. People even said “Pardon my French!” after having used swear words, implying all bad words must be French.
So napkin became the more acceptable “upper class” word, and serviette the vulgar one.

I would say napkin. In Spanish we say paper or little pieces of paper.

It would take me a second to catch on to what you meant by serviette, OP, but yes when I lived in the U.K. I did hear that word used. Very weird that staff in a restaurant or café wouldn't have heard it before...was the person very young?

64BooLane I agree that serviette has the whole Hyacinth Bucket/Bouquet thing going on with its frilly dressing up, but I also think lavatory (which is correct) sounds frilly vs toilet (which isn't)

absolutely agree, MrsEric - ‘lavatory’ does sound frilly. All those syllables. Toilet isn’t a beautiful word but at least it’s straightforward.

My granny used to call them 'serve 'e rights' as a little joke (said in Devon accent)

Irrespective of 'class', you'd expect someone to know what it meant. Even from reading. Interestingly, a napkin is a serviette de table in French. You'd think that would be way posher. Or is it a backlash?

Not as bad as when I asked a young lassie in the supermarket where the Semolina was. She had never heard of Semolina.

She worked there. Not a random query to a passerby.

I wish id never heard of semolina

Im having flash backs

I think the French v Anglo Saxon words thing goes back to the Norman conquest, doesn't it? That's why there are two words for things like pig and pork (porc), cow and beef (boeuf), etc. Not sure why the Anglo Saxon is posher though...

And I would say serviette for those horrible paper thingies, and napkin for linen ones. Macdonalds calls them napkins because it's American of course.

Young people probably wouldn't know the term. It's not so commonplace now. It's quite surprising how some terms have plummeted into obscurity, we have a list of them amongst (which is one in itself) colleagues:

Mooch,
Gander,
Sweltering,
Meander,
Rummage

There's many more...

I thought serviettes was a perfectly usual term. To me, serviettes are the paper things, napkins are the cloth ones that you keep in your silver napkin ring. My DD (8) is a picky eater but getting better so for her dad's last birthday we went for a curry - a treat for him as first time in about 7 years! She was bowled over by the curry house ( wow, this is such a posh restaurant!!) because of the big cloth napkins! Not a serviette in sight...

I call them serviettes and so do 7/10 people I know

What do the people who give funny looks at the word ‘courgette’ call courgettes?

In the US they’re zucchini, but I’ve only ever heard courgette since settling here.

See your post Babdoc. Makes sense. Like how a German Shepherd was called an Alsatian around WW1 because of anti-German feeling.

I call them serviettes 😬

Very weird that staff in a restaurant or café wouldn't have heard it before...was the person very young?

LockedOutOfMN It was in McDonalds. In McDonalds we call them napkins; they are even delivered in a box saying napkins.

I thought a courgette was a little red sports car?