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!
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
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.
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
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I think just go the Invader Zim route and infer honorifics by height.
“Yes, my tallest” and “forgive me, my tallest” should cover you in most yes/no situations.
And if they’re not taller than you? Well then they’re less intelligent, so you can turn up your nose in scorn and look over heads until they go away.
I learned a lot of about social interaction from that show.
I’d say change as you like, but an accidental misgender is not an offensive action, unto itself. As in, we should hope to not do it, but done accidentally is not malice.
Again, we can hope to do a whole lot better than just-above-malice, but you shouldn’t feel guilt.
Thank you for the reply.
Yeah think of it like stepping on someone’s foot in a crowd. It hurts but it happens.
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.
I’ll often just go for a “thank you kindly!”. It has the same flow.
That IS pretty good…
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.
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
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.
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.
Please and thank yous are enough to be polite to strangers.
“Good morning/day/evening” or something similar always seemed to be appreciated and “Have a nice/great day/week/weekend/…” works quite well in most situations where you or other people are leaving too.
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 cult, 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.”
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.
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.
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.
I could do “boss”. Thanks for the reply.
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.
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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.
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I can see uncomfortable (same for me), but insulted?
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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 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.
I always look “mate” to be totally gender neutral.
This makes me feel better. It’s just I seem to see it be said to men more. Apparently if she feels the need to call you out on how you are towards her, she does, and she didn’t, so…
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.
Yes, I wouldn’t say women don’t say it here, but I think it’s majority male, and this woman is blatantly MtF.
