Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2017 June 26

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June 26

Dinner set or something

A glass, plate, knife, spoon and fork, what is it called altogether? I thought of utensils 116.58.202.238 (talk) 17:34, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

Tableware or maybe place setting? ---Sluzzelin talk 17:50, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

Not answering the question but related: the knife, spoon and fork are referred to as cutlery. Akld guy (talk) 21:07, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

Not in USA. HOTmag (talk) 21:40, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

...with the distinct US usage as stated in the second paragraph of cutlery. I concur with place setting for the individual set-up - both its elements and the customary layout. -- Deborahjay (talk) 05:32, 27 June 2017 (UTC)'

The usual American term for knife, fork, and spoon is silverware, whether or not made of silver (in fact, the phrase "plastic silverware" is common and does not sound odd, unless you stop and think about it). I don't think there's any exact special term for that plus plates and drinking glasses. Place setting doesn't quite work; it would include napkins. Utensils is a synonym of "silverware"; doesn't include plates or drinking glasses. --Trovatore (talk) 05:39, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

I'm sure this discussion on US usage is very useful for our Bangladeshi OP, where they do use the term cutlery correctly. Fgf10 (talk) 06:49, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

Your reflexive anti-American bigotry is really obnoxious and tiresome. Please cut it out. --Trovatore (talk) 07:22, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

This whole tangent doesn't even make sense to me, I'm from the US and count forks and spoons as cutlery. -165.234.252.11 (talk) 19:17, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

I went looking and found the source for cutlery's American usage paragraph: the gut feeling of an English guy who posted on the talk page in 2003. -165.234.252.11 (talk) 19:20, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

The English guy just asked a question. It was the editor from Birmingham, Alabama who claimed that half of Americans do not understand the meaning of the term cutlery. Do we need to adjust the paragraph? Dbfirs 19:42, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

Well, we definitely don't use it much. I can imagine it being understood as only things that cut. --Trovatore (talk) 19:53, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

Well... yes, it's a statement in the lead that isn't supported by the body or a citation, and it also isn't something glaringly obvious or trivial to verify, so in its current form it's against policy. -165.234.252.11 (talk) 16:00, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

The set of crockery (plates, etc), glassware and cutlery (knives, forks, etc) placed on the table for a single person is a place setting - and that will apply regardless of how many items are involved. The lack of a napkin is irrelevant - not all cultures use them, anyway. It might just be a bowl and a pair of chopsticks, or it might be a massive number of items for a state banquet - but it would still be called a place setting. The overall term for everything used to set a table is tableware, which would include tablecloths serving dishes and decorations, as well as the individual place settings. Table setting is more likely to be describing the act of putting everything in place on the table, rather than the things used. Wymspen (talk) 08:25, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

The phrase I am familiar with is "laying the table". 94.195.147.35 (talk) 08:37, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

That always makes me thing of "laying an egg" - ouch. Wymspen (talk) 17:31, 28 June 2017 (UTC)