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A towel is a piece of absorbent fabric or paper used for drying or wiping. It draws moisture through direct contact using a blotting or a rubbing motion.
Types of towels
- A bath towel is used for drying one's body after bathing or showering. It is typically rectangular, with a typical size around 30"×60" (75×150 cm). A large bath towel is sometimes called a bath sheet. Some smaller bath towels are designed for use as bath mats.
- A beach towel is usually a little bit larger than a bath towel. Although it is often used for drying off after being in the water, its chief purpose is to provide a surface to lie on. They are also worn for privacy while changing clothes in a public area, and for wiping sand from the body or objects. Beach towels often have colourful patterns printed or woven into them.
- A hand towel is significantly smaller than a bath towel (perhaps 30x60 cm), and is used for drying one's hands after washing them.
- A paper towel is a piece of paper that can be used once as a towel and then be disposed of. A perforated roll of paper towels is normally mounted on a rod a little longer than the width of the roll, or in an alternative type of hanger that has indentations on ears, the indentations fitting into the ends of the paper towel roll. Paper towels can also be found packaged like facial tissues, as individual folded sheets.
- A tea towel (British English) or dish towel (American English) is a cloth which is used to dry dishes, cutlery, etc., after they have been washed. In 18th century England, a tea towel was a special linen drying cloth used by the mistress of the house to dry her precious and expensive china tea things. Servants were considered too ham-fisted to be trusted with such a delicate job, although housemaids were charged with hand-hemming the woven linen when their main duties were completed. Mass-produced tea towels were produced during the Industrial Revolution. Today pictorial tea towels make charming and collectible souvenirs, and are occasionally used as wall decorations in European restaurants
- A wet towel (oshibori) is used in Japan to wash one's hands before eating. It is often given to customers of an izakaya.
- A sweat towel is often of similar size to a hand towel, and can be required in gyms in order to wipe down the machines after use.
The term kitchen towel can refer to either a dish towel or to a paper towel, the latter usage being primarily British.
- In the swimming culture world, "Towel" is rapidly evolving to be a proper noun, and an adjective. Reportedly starting somewhere in Texas, the use of "Towel" to mean anything from cute, to good, to fun, to pleasurable. "Towel," has also evolved to be a noun in the sense that it is proper grammar in the swimming world to refer to someone, especially a coach as "my towel," "that towel," or "a towel."
- This usage most likely evolved from swimmers drying themselves after practice; after an intense 3 hour workout in the wee hours of 4 a.m., drying off the ice cold water with a "Towel" is synonymous with heaven.
Alternative uses
Towels are often used for purposes other than drying things. For example:- To sit, lie and stand on, to avoid direct contact with the ground, rock, chair, etc. This may be for hygiene and comfort, and in saunas or other places where nudity is common.
- Barbers use steamed towels to prepare the skin for shaving.
- To reserve seats, for example sunloungers, by the side of swimming pools or similar locations (a source of annoyance to some and amusement to others).
- A towel can act as a make-shift garment or blanket. There are is a variety uses when a towel is applied in this manner. For example, the towel can be used as an extra layer of clothing for cold conditions; or can be worn on its own around the waist (similarly to a kilt or skirt) or just under the shoulders (similarly to a long dress), usually in a warm environment.
- In Asian countries, towels (smaller in size than hand towels - usually square 30*30) are used as handkerchiefs. Men and women both carry them. The softness of the turkish-type towel makes it a favourite for use.
- In some cases, a towel can be used to protect its owner (as well as other people). For example, a damp towel can be used to block the gap between the door and floor to help stop noxious gases or smoke from entering the room. This is especially useful in case of a fire, where, in most cases, people die of smoke inhalation before the fire reaches them.
- On cruise ships, towel animals are created for the patrons.
- Towels can also be used like a whip in what is known as towel snapping.
Pop culture trivia
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Towels played an iconic role in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (HHGG or H2G2). They are described as the most "massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have." The fictitious time/space traveller and Guide Researcher Ford Prefect uses the idiom "a frood who really knows where his towel is" to mean someone generally alert and aware. The fictional HHGG has the following to say on the subject of towels:"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has a few things to say on the subject of towels. A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value—you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy river Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindboggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you—daft as a brush, but very, very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.
More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag hiker discovers that a hitchhiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitchhiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitchhiker might accidentally have 'lost'. What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with." (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Chapter Three)
Some fans of Douglas Adams have seized on this idea, and towels are now considered a symbol of one's devotion to the Hitchhiker books, radio series, TV series, website, etc. Towel Day, is held each year in memory of Adams.
Image:Towelie.jpg|Towelie from South Park. Image:Terribletowel.png|A Terrible Towel. Other references
- In the cartoon South Park a character named Towelie is a walking, talking towel that was artificially created in a lab for military/subversive purposes. As a reference to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy he frequently reminds people to bring towels, because you'll never know when you'll need a towel.
- Fans started using Terrible Towels in the 1970s to encourage the Pittsburgh Steelers as they sought (and eventually won) an NFL championship.
- In 1982 Roger Neilson, the then head coach of the Vancouver Canucks, waved a white towel on the end of a hockey stick in mock surrender at what he felt was a sequence of unfair penalties during a playoff game against the Chicago Blackhawks. Three Canucks emulated him and all four were ejected from the game. The following game thousands of fans brought and waved towels and it has remained a traditional way for fans to show their support during the playoffs. There are even official towels which are sometimes handed out at playoff games.
See also
- h2g2 entry on towels (contains detailed uses of towels and references to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy)
- Toallagate
- Terrycloth
Related External Info
Bathing | Textiles | Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy | Linens
Handtuch | Mantuko | حوله | מגבת | Handdoek | タオル | Ręcznik | Toalha | pyyhe | Handduk
"Towel"