NWR: Napkins

Inkdancer · April 2014

For fun, I did an image search for "etiquette" to see what I'd find.

One guide to napkin etiquette said that you should never lift your napkin to your mouth. Is this true? If so, how am I to remove dripped soup from my chin in a ladylike fashion? (I know, a perfect lady would never drip her soup, but I am not perfect.)

Inkdancer · April 2014

The post, for the curious

tammym1001 · April 2014

I'm not sure how you're supposed to wipe your mouth, but I always read that you were supposed to leave your napkin on your seat if you had to get up. If you put it to the left when you get up and when you're done, how will they know if they should take your plate away or not?

misshart00 · April 2014

tammym1001 said:
I'm not sure how you're supposed to wipe your mouth, but I always read that you were supposed to leave your napkin on your seat if you had to get up. If you put it to the left when you get up and when you're done, how will they know if they should take your plate away or not?

This is what I was taught in cotillion.

B0320 · April 2014

You should never wipe your mouth, just discretely dab using your napkin. Also, if you get up from the table during a meal your napkin goes on your seat. When the meal is done it goes on the table to the left of your plate.

^^^ My grandmother was an etiquette nazi...

jdluvr06 · April 2014

I understand the purpose of most etiquette things but I have to say I think napkin etiquette is a little sill.y

JCbride2015 · April 2014

jdluvr06 said:

I understand the purpose of most etiquette things but I have to say I think napkin etiquette is a little sill.y

I actually find napkin etiquette extremely useful when dining at an upscale restaurant where the staff is trained in these things. At formal business lunches or dinners, I always leave my napkin on my seat if I go to the ladies' room. The staff know to take the napkin and refold it to the left of my plate for when I come back. The napkin on the seat is a signal I'm coming back, so please don't take my plate while I'm gone.

I agree the "never raise your napkin, it should stay in your lap at all times" is a little weird. Dabbing your mouth is fine, just don't do a big wipe or God forbid blow your nose.

dolewhipper · April 2014

This probably follows dining etiquette which states to never have a large bite to begin with, thus eliminating the problem of dripped soup to begin with. Dabbing is cool, wiping is not

mrscaty · April 2014

JCBride2014 said:
I actually find napkin etiquette extremely useful when dining at an upscale restaurant where the staff is trained in these things. At formal business lunches or dinners, I always leave my napkin on my seat if I go to the ladies' room. The staff know to take the napkin and refold it to the left of my plate for when I come back. The napkin on the seat is a signal I'm coming back, so please don't take my plate while I'm gone.

I agree! In college we had an etiquette coach come and do a dinner training session for if/when we had a job interview/business meeting over a meal. We were taught about the napkin thing and also how to signal with our utensils. If you put your utensils crossing each other, it's resting position signaling "I'm not done." When you put the fork and knife next to each other with fork downward facing it says "I'm done, take my plate." I've found this to be useful when FH and I go out to nice dinners. It enables you to have minimal contact with the waitstaff (but always make sure to say thank you at least once) while remaining engaged in the dinner conversation.

jdluvr06 · April 2014

jdluvr06 said:

I understand the purpose of most etiquette things but I have to say I think napkin etiquette is a little sill.y

I actually find napkin etiquette extremely useful when dining at an upscale restaurant where the staff is trained in these things. At formal business lunches or dinners, I always leave my napkin on my seat if I go to the ladies' room. The staff know to take the napkin and refold it to the left of my plate for when I come back. The napkin on the seat is a signal I'm coming back, so please don't take my plate while I'm gone.

I agree the "never raise your napkin, it should stay in your lap at all times" is a little weird. Dabbing your mouth is fine, just don't do a big wipe or God forbid blow your nose.

I'm that person who avoids formal events as much as I possibly can. I'm lucky enough to work on a field where a dinner meeting usually involves Chinese takeout in the lab.

pinkshorts27 · April 2014

jdluvr06 said:

jdluvr06 said:

I understand the purpose of most etiquette things but I have to say I think napkin etiquette is a little sill.y

I actually find napkin etiquette extremely useful when dining at an upscale restaurant where the staff is trained in these things. At formal business lunches or dinners, I always leave my napkin on my seat if I go to the ladies' room. The staff know to take the napkin and refold it to the left of my plate for when I come back. The napkin on the seat is a signal I'm coming back, so please don't take my plate while I'm gone.

I agree the "never raise your napkin, it should stay in your lap at all times" is a little weird. Dabbing your mouth is fine, just don't do a big wipe or God forbid blow your nose.
I'm that person who avoids formal events as much as I possibly can. I'm lucky enough to work on a field where a dinner meeting usually involves Chinese takeout in the lab.

are you an engineer? haha. That is my field majorly

jdluvr06 · April 2014

blueeyes90 said:

jdluvr06 said:

jdluvr06 said:

I understand the purpose of most etiquette things but I have to say I think napkin etiquette is a little sill.y

I actually find napkin etiquette extremely useful when dining at an upscale restaurant where the staff is trained in these things. At formal business lunches or dinners, I always leave my napkin on my seat if I go to the ladies' room. The staff know to take the napkin and refold it to the left of my plate for when I come back. The napkin on the seat is a signal I'm coming back, so please don't take my plate while I'm gone.

I agree the "never raise your napkin, it should stay in your lap at all times" is a little weird. Dabbing your mouth is fine, just don't do a big wipe or God forbid blow your nose.
I'm that person who avoids formal events as much as I possibly can. I'm lucky enough to work on a field where a dinner meeting usually involves Chinese takeout in the lab.

are you an engineer? haha. That is my field majorly

Nope. I'm a Cultural Anthropologist. I mainly study religion. So that involves a lot of time hunched over a desk looking at documents.

JCbride2015 · April 2014

blueeyes90 said:

jdluvr06 said:

jdluvr06 said:

I understand the purpose of most etiquette things but I have to say I think napkin etiquette is a little sill.y

I actually find napkin etiquette extremely useful when dining at an upscale restaurant where the staff is trained in these things. At formal business lunches or dinners, I always leave my napkin on my seat if I go to the ladies' room. The staff know to take the napkin and refold it to the left of my plate for when I come back. The napkin on the seat is a signal I'm coming back, so please don't take my plate while I'm gone.

I agree the "never raise your napkin, it should stay in your lap at all times" is a little weird. Dabbing your mouth is fine, just don't do a big wipe or God forbid blow your nose.
I'm that person who avoids formal events as much as I possibly can. I'm lucky enough to work on a field where a dinner meeting usually involves Chinese takeout in the lab.

are you an engineer? haha. That is my field majorly

@jdluvr06 Yeah I've heard you say before that you don't like formal events. As I think you know, I'm in the legal field so formal events are sort of unavoidable. I actually like them most of the time, as long as I'm with people who know how to carry on a conversation. And I love to get dressed up, too.

jdluvr06 · April 2014

blueeyes90 said:

jdluvr06 said:

jdluvr06 said:

I understand the purpose of most etiquette things but I have to say I think napkin etiquette is a little sill.y

I actually find napkin etiquette extremely useful when dining at an upscale restaurant where the staff is trained in these things. At formal business lunches or dinners, I always leave my napkin on my seat if I go to the ladies' room. The staff know to take the napkin and refold it to the left of my plate for when I come back. The napkin on the seat is a signal I'm coming back, so please don't take my plate while I'm gone.

I agree the "never raise your napkin, it should stay in your lap at all times" is a little weird. Dabbing your mouth is fine, just don't do a big wipe or God forbid blow your nose.
I'm that person who avoids formal events as much as I possibly can. I'm lucky enough to work on a field where a dinner meeting usually involves Chinese takeout in the lab.

are you an engineer? haha. That is my field majorly

@jdluvr06 Yeah I've heard you say before that you don't like formal events. As I think you know, I'm in the legal field so formal events are sort of unavoidable. I actually like them most of the time, as long as I'm with people who know how to carry on a conversation. And I love to get dressed up, too.

Yeah, you can't really avoid it when you work in the legal field. Oddly enough I like to dress up I just don't like formal settings. Probably because we didn't go to any when I was growing up and the only ones I've gone to as an adult were benefits where we had to suck up to some awful rich people (I'm being very specific here, not all rich people are awful, just the ones at these benefits) to get funding for stuff. It always left a bad taste in my mouth.

ElcaB · April 2014

I just use my sleeve, naturally.

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