Etiquette of the Napkin is Important

Ideally speaking, a napkin is used but once between trips never used to the laundry and hence napkin rings would be unnecessary. But practically a great many persons cannot afford to do this and so the napkin ring has a perfectly legitimate place on the dining table and its use is infinitely preferable to the practice of folding the napkins in fantastic shapes as a means of identification. 

“If it is not seemly, do it not.” —Marcus Aurelius

Some people seem to think that they have learned all there is to know about managing the napkin when they have learned not to tuck it in the collar or otherwise use it as a sort of chest protector while eating.

But there is much more to the gentle art of using the napkin than that. Several hundred years ago, you know, it was the correct and altogether elegant thing to use the edge of the tablecloth for a napkin. At another period persons who knew what to do at the right time carried the napkin over the right arm when eating and, it is said, the custom among waiters of carrying a towel over the right arm dates from that time. 

At still another time in luxurious households a fresh napkin was served with each course and as the diners finished the course they let the used napkins slip to the floor so that at the end of a banquet a pile of damask lay on the floor at each place— the more bountiful the banquet the higher the pile of linen.

Now we find one napkin, simply folded at the right of our place of lying on the plate, as we sit down to dinner. We unfold it as deftly as possible and place it across our lap— “across the left knee” the strict authorities used to say. As need may require we wipe our fingers on the napkin beneath the table and occasionally raise it to our lips. 

When finger bowls are passed the fingers are dipped in the bowl, first one hand and then the other, and then wiped on the napkin. Never under any circumstances dip the napkin in the finger bowl. If we wish to wipe the lips with the water we should merely moisten the fingers, touch the lips, and then wipe the lips and fingers.

Ideally speaking, a napkin is used but once between trips never used to the laundry and hence napkin rings would be unnecessary. But practically a great many persons cannot afford to do this and so the napkin ring has a perfectly legitimate place on the dining table and its use is infinitely preferable to the practice of folding the napkins in fantastic shapes as a means of identification.

At a hotel or restaurant the napkin should never be folded after a meal but left at the right side of the place. When we take but a single meal at another person’s home we should do the same thing, but when taking more than one meal we should watch and see what others do. If they fold their napkins it would be rude for us not to do the same. When a napkin is folded do it unostentatiously as possible, never laying it out on the table and smoothing it into its original folds.

The question is sometimes asked whether or not it is in good form to serve paper napkins with refreshments at a social gathering. One would not find them at the homes of persons of means who could perfectly well afford to have damask napkins. However, since they are perfectly clean, inconspicious and conveniently answer the purpose for which napkins were invented, it would be absurd to say they were not in good form. 

Paper napkins would be in far better form at a an entertainment where the use of damask napkins would mean an extravagance on the part of the hostess. Where paper napkins are used for a supper it is best to have those that are perfectly white. — Morning Union, 1917

🍽Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipediag Etiquette Encyclopedia

Using Napkins and Napkin Rings

It seems that Miss Manners “has survived into a world where people believe that napkin rings are useless but decorative items to be put out on the company table. Of course there are always fresh napkins out for company, which is why napkin rings were strictly an informal, family device that would be considered ludicrous at a dinner party.” — 

A little over 100 years earlier from when this article was written, a gilded age design for a combination napkin ring, menu holder and bud vase was patented.

— Photo source, Etiquipedia library

The Finer Points of Correct Manners 

Share this 

• Share this on Facebook (opens in new windo
• Share this on Twitter (opens in new wi
• All sharing opt

Qualms were a sensation unknown to Miss Manners. If you invariably do everything right, there is never any occasion for that sudden "whoops" that starts a downhill slide of misgivings.

So it was rather a shock for Miss Manners to experience a slight semblance of this feeling in regard to, of all things, a dinner-table practice. Miss Manners' dinner table is not, as you can imagine, lax. But twice in a week, different people had expressed shock upon discovering that at the Miss Manners family dinner table, napkin rings are used in the traditional way. That is to say, each member of the family has a different napkin ring (in this case, the designs are different, but it is also customary to have similar rings with identifying names or initials), replaces it on the napkin after a meal, and thus is able to receive the same napkin for use at the next meal.

"Do you mean to say," each of her interlocutors had asked with widened eyes and mouths, "that you don't have fresh napkins at every meal?"

Well, yes, that is what Miss Manners had meant, if not what she had necessarily meant to blab. Just as ordinary households have the sheets and towels changed once a week (not twice a day, as fastidious tycoons with full-time laundresses are said to demand, since tycoons require afternoon naps on fresh sheets to soften the stress of all that money), ordinary households have the napkins changed every few days, barring accidents or finger-food orgies.

Or so Miss Manners had thought. It was the expressions of surprise that prompted her qualms. Are other people doing a load of napkins every day, one for each meal that each member of the family takes at home?

Since Miss Manners agrees that in an ideal world there would be no recycling of used napkins, ought she to be spending her time attending to the home question rather than the world's etiquette problems?

Not really. The world of etiquette is not unfamiliar with compromise and trade-offs, and Miss Manners can live with recycled napkins in order to have time for doing other things, and in order not to create a water shortage.

It was only later that Miss Manners discovered the real meaning of those questions.

It seems that she has survived into a world where people believe that napkin rings are useless but decorative items to be put out on the company table.

Of course there are always fresh napkins out for company, which is why napkin rings were strictly an informal, family device that would be considered ludicrous at a dinner party.

But it seems that there are also now fresh napkins out for each family meal - not because household laundry has increased, but because "napkin" has come to mean something made out of paper. Cloth napkins are thought to be too much trouble in a busy modern household.

Miss Manners urges a revival of the daily use of cloth napkins, along with the labor-saving napkin rings. Contrary to anti-etiquette propaganda, various prematurely abandoned tableware devices were not invented in order to put sensible people to unnecessary expense and trouble. On the contrary.

For example, finger bowls have survived only where they are least needed - at formal dinners, where there is little likelihood of finger food being served.

The effete versions on doilies, with floating rose petal, to be put to one side untouched by the diner, disguise the fact that finger bowls properly serve the purpose of a moist towelette in a package.

Salad knives have pretty much passed out of use (but not at Miss Manners' table), but it continues to be impossible to cut a wedge of lettuce or tomato with the side of a fork.

In regard to napkin-ring usage, Miss Manners has been asked whether it isn't disgusting to reuse a napkin. Not if you also use another quaint old tradition that has also fallen into disuse. Table manners.— By Judith Martin, Miss Manners, 1989

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia