My parents raised me to always say “yes sir” and “no ma’am”, and I automatically say it to service workers and just about anyone with whom I’m not close that I interact with. I noticed recently that I had misgendered a cashier when saying something like “no thank you, ma’am” based on their appearing AFAB, but on a future visit to the store they had added their pronouns (they) to their name tag. I would feel bad if their interaction with me was something they will remember when feeling down. This particular person has a fairly androgynous haircut/look and wears a store uniform, so there’s no gender clue there.
I am thinking I need to just stop saying “sir” and “ma’am” altogether, but I like the politeness and I don’t know how I would replace it in a gender-neutral way. Is there anything better than just dropping it entirely?
For background I’m a millennial and more than happy to use people’s correct pronouns if I know them!
Don’t worry about it.
When someone corrects you, refer to them as they’ve asked you to and if they haven’t or weren’t clear, ask them how they’d like to be called.
E: In my experience it speaks more powerfully when you can be wrong, apologize and correct the mistake with understanding and grace than when you just drill the agender language till its rote.
No one identifies as chief or boss.
This is a helpful reply; thank you.
It would be nice if we could get a consensus gender neutral formal honorific. But it’s pulling teeth to get everyone on board with polite respect in using gender neutral pronouns at all. People be trippin.
Formal honorifics are important. They’re about giving verbal respect until familiarity builds enough to bypass the barrier of the unknown.
Yeah, the origins of honorifics were bound into classist malarkey, but they haven’t stayed there. Once we got to the point where folks were ma’aming and sirring everyone, it became something useful. A way of navigating the complex layers of social interaction, and generating a gradual path from stranger to friend.
Sir and ma’am are equalizers when used broadly. They set everyone respected individual by default. I would love a third, or even more, term/terms to be added to that for our neighbors that don’t fit the binary.
Good honorifics are the foundation of maintaining good behavior towards everyone
Sidestepping cultural appropriation, I would go with “sama” for the timebeing. It is a Japanese honorific. They did theirs right, most of their common honorifics are genderless. Hell, the really common ones can be used to refer to literally anything to show respect.
https://www.fluentu.com/blog/japanese/japanese-honorifics/#toc_5
I think it’s because a lot of queer folks fall where I do on honorifics. It’s not that they’re outdated. It’s that formality is disrespect with a power difference. I use professional formality as neutral formal. Once I start calling someone sir or ma’am they’re getting “with all due respect [none]” as well, or i acknowledge that I’ve fucked up and they can’t call me out so I use it to elevate them back. So really it serves as the back foot to fall to.
And like I’d love to see some theory and history of how we wound up like this because I know that culture has shifted this way, but we are some of the first to drop traditional formality. I wouldn’t be shocked if it was dropped due to the familial tone of our community or the anarchic influences on us.
I do appreciate seeing your input on all of it because it’s always felt stuffy and distancing to me, and while i understand to use it as a form of cultural respect for certain groups, I didn’t really get why some young people may still want it
I used to specifically work all-male forensics. The intricacies of social structure asking criminally insane men can be somewhat complex, but sir (and now that I work coed sometimes ma’am) goes a lot farther than you’d think. It also helps to start every shift by walking into the dayroom and saying “good evening gentlemen! How’s everybody doing tonight?”
rare german w, our honorific form is gender neutral! (kinda its a little more complex, but its easy to use in a gender neutral way) (the rest of our language isn’t though, just the honorifics are)
Wait, what’s the gender neutralish German honorific?
I think they mean “Sie”, which later for decapitalised as “sie” for female
Oh! I was thinking maybe “geerhte” but that makes way more sense. Duh.
That would be my ideal outcome. I haven’t seen a neo-pronoun type of thing for this situation, sadly. It’s tough to impose new rules on a language via fiat anyway, so it probably wouldn’t catch on.
Just drop the pronouns. Super easy, doesn’t change based on who your are speaking to, and just saying Thanks or Thank You is 1000x better than your average retail customer.
I don’t know where you grew up, but this sounds like “southern hospitality.” I’m a gen-x New Englander, and it always creeped me out because I suspected it originated from slavery, and it seems I was right: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_hospitality
I can relate! Thank you for helping put a reason behind the ick I was instinctively feeling!!
I don’t think that kind of thing is unique to the South nor its link to slavery. In a larger scope, it’s a deference to class hierarchy. George Orwell in Homage to Catalonia, talking about his experience in socialist Barcelona during the Spanish Civil War:
Waiters and shop-walkers looked you in the face and treated you as an equal. Servile and even ceremonial forms of speech had temporarily disappeared. Nobody said ‘Señor’ or ‘Don’ or even ‘Usted’; everyone called everyone else ‘Comrade’ and ‘Thou’, and said ‘Salud!’ instead of ‘Buenos días’. Tipping was forbidden by law; almost my first experience was receiving a lecture from a hotel manager for trying to tip a lift-boy.
Sir and ma’am are so far divorced from any of that as to be absurd.
Nor is polite formality a purely southern thing at all. People up north used to teach their kids to sir and ma’am their teachers too.
Unbelievable.
???
Believe it, sister!
Sister?! Have you learned nothing?!
(Lol sorry it was too perfect.)
I’m from NZ so my go to is “mate” but having lived in the UK and Ireland for nearly ten years, holy crap do they have you covered with many fantastic options…
Darling - this is what old ladies at my local supermarket checkout prefer in East London. Dear - similar to above it is probably supposed to be said to someone younger than you Love - pronounced “Luv” is all England I think Boss - (or Bossman - but not relevant here) is a widespread London one. Duck - Often used in the Midlands, particularly around Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire. Pet - the North East, such as in Newcastle. My lover - the South West, particularly in Bristol and surrounding areas. Gaffer - maybe Irish?
The more obviously gendered ones are actually extensive too like Hen, Babs, Babes, Son, Chick, Flower, Laddie, Lassie, Bonnie, Doll.
Honourable mention for Twat - when you don’t want to be polite.
People who grew up here will have even more. To them I say, have I passed the Home Office “Life in the UK” test now?
Poppet is my fave, Midlands I think
Nothing like going into a rough pub in Sheffield, and having the landlord ask, “what’ll it be love?”
With flying colours, me old strumpet
These are amazing. I’ve only heard a few of them before!
All of these, maybe with the exception of duck and gaffer, if said in North America would be either not seen as gender neutral, or would be especially creepy if a man used it.
That’s cos yous are professional offence-takers 😂
Cos yer ma didn’t pay you enough attention as bairns
Or they just have different connotations here. Would it be acceptable for a man to go up to a woman he’s never met before and say “I’m in love with you” while she’s just doing her job? If you say yes, I have to wonder who of us was really raised wrong.
On what fucking planet would a sane bloke ever do that?!?
Oh, wait, you don’t have accessible mental healthcare for most people. As you were 😂
Man unable to comprehend that words can have different meanings in different countries, and is unable to understand analogy, more at 11
Appreciate the recognition on your part!
My wife actually called me out on my one worded answers, as the way I say it (my tone of voice), it comes off very unfriendly or cold.
Before –
“Do you want more water?”
Me: “Yep.” (Cold silence.)
Now –
“Do you want more water?”
Me: “Yes please! Thank you so much.”
I absolutely noticed a difference by just adding more words makes me come off less hostile and more polite.
That’s great. I recognize that folks with whom I interact at their work are often treated indifferently at best, and I like to make their day a little better if I can.
Comrade.
I could do that!
When I don’t know which to use I will fall back on the old Aussie “mate” title.
That’s fun. Do you do the accent? Or are you actually from down under?
I am an Aussie.
Awesome.
An enby I encountered a fair bit back home would call everyone friend, and I might refer to people as folks. I am lucky I’m Australian, so mate also works.
Friend is good, but I’d feel a bit like I was in a cukt, I think.
“Thanks, friend. By the way, you know who else is your friend? The Flying Spaghetti Monster. Let me tell you all about it.”
Working at a gas station, most of the truckers that came in would call me “boss” or “chief” which I thought was funny. Like “thanks boss” or “how’s it going chief”. Not sure its for everyone but its certainly neutral in my eyes.
First things first, if you’re still troubled by that one particular interaction try to address and apologise it as soon as you have a good opportunity. Not any opportunity, a good one.
I can’t comment on the root of your question, since that culture of your is very different from mine.
I recently said “thanks mate” to a blatant MtF person that works for the same organisation as I do. I probably very visibly shit a brick and thought “not your best choice of words”. If it’s obvious, I will use gendered words, if someone has pronouns or something to make it obvious how they want to be referred to, I’ll use them. If it’s not obvious, and they have nothing to indicate how they want to be referred to, I’ll just be polite.
Mistakes happen, be polite and apologise and I reckon you’ll be fine.
Are you in the UK? I’m an Aussie and I’ve always considered “mate” to be gender neutral. I’ve seen all combinations of men and women saying it to each other.
I always look “mate” to be totally gender neutral.
Fwiw, nothing to do with gender but I hate being addressed as sir/ma’am, especially by people I don’t know. It’s unnecessarily formal and I know most people think it’s a respectfl thing but to me it’s somewhat insulting and makes me uncomfortable. Thank you is plenty.
I feel this way too. I know nearly who calls me ma’am is intending to be courteous and I don’t hold it against them. That said, knowing they are well intended doesn’t make me less uncomfortable.
Also the idea of sir being the term of respect for all men and even boys but ma’am being for “older” women adds some baked in unavoidable sexism, no matters how genuinely-not-actually-sexiest the speaker is. There are just necessary built in assumptions about the addressee when you have to choose between ma’am and miss (or similar). The implication is that societal value of women, and not men, is age-determined. The former often makes a woman feel undesirably old and the latter often makes her feel infantalized. It’s the same as the Mr./Mrs./Miss situation, where moving just to Mr. and Ms. alleviates that tension a bit. No clear answer for sir and ma’am honorifics though.
No clear answer for sir and ma’am honorifics
I feel there is no need for them so just dropping them is the best solution - anyone who expects them or is insulted by not using them is an entitled ass.
ma’am being for “older” women
Where I grew up, that’s not the case. Ma’am or madam is for any adult woman, and often for kids you are treating like adults.
I know it’s different on the East Coast, but I still feel silly calling a grown woman “miss”.
I can see uncomfortable (same for me), but insulted?
Yeah, somewhat, because I’m not some entitled ass when thinks I’m better than you, I’m not a military officer in charge of you, and I’m not so old that you need to be deferential because I come from another time and expect it.
Some groups mostly use it as an insult. “You can’t handle being treated as an equal so I’m going to get overly formal and distant with you” I often use it with “with all due respect [none]”.
It’s basically “sir you’re making a scene” to some people
I’ll often just go for a “thank you kindly!”. It has the same flow.
That IS pretty good…
