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!
Yes please and no thank you
I do that too, of course, but “sir” and “ma’am” are a bit more formally polite by showing deference.
[preface: I got mad respect for you for wanting to find a solution here that works for everyone. Top-shelf stuff right there. The following is adding detail and not to berate you and I want to make sure that’s out there.]
People really don’t mind either way. The bar is on the floor with how conservatives are acting these days so simply respecting their pronouns will let them feel so much more human.
There are two kinds of respect I’ve experienced: the first is simply treating others kindly, fairly, and with patience and consideration. The second “formal politeness” is more often demanded than earned and it’s always based on stuff like “I’m older than you” because they don’t have anything else going for them. That deference is meant to make anyone who doesn’t treat them as special out to be “impolite” so they don’t need to back-up their decisions.
Most decent people don’t want the second kind of respect. I know for me it makes me feel icky thinking that someone has muted themselves because they’re afraid of making me angry. Mind you I don’t think poorly of anyone who says it, ever, because they’re just doing what they were taught and trying to be polite.
Most decent people don’t want the second kind of respect. I know for me it makes me feel icky thinking that someone has muted themselves because they’re afraid of making me angry. Mind you I don’t think poorly of anyone who says it, ever, because they’re just doing what they were taught and trying to be polite.
Strong agree. I do not want to be shown deference if I’m not in an explicit position of authority and I do now want to shown respect if I haven’t earned it. (I also resent being asked to show deference or respect when it isn’t merited.) General politeness, like please and thank you, goes a long way toward demonstrating that you respect the person as an equal, which feels much more respectful to me than imposing some kind of arbitrary implied hierarchy of unearned respect between strangers.
I wouldn’t say “deference” accurately describes my intent when using the terms, but my usage is probably a bit atypical.
I use them in much the same manner as a judge would use them when addressing a litigant, or a teacher might use them when addressing a student: to indicate a respectful and welcoming mentality, but without inviting familiarity. When I am happy you are here right now, but I don’t particularly want to be your friend.
I speak a language with a formal you and am constantly trying to use it to tell people to back off, but it doesn’t really work like that. That’s absolutely what I do in English with ma’am/sir though.
I used to work in a call center for an insurance company, so people would get upset and shitty with us. My default to “reset” politeness was to allow a couple beats of silence, then say “well sir/ma’am, xyz is what I can do to help you. Would you like my help?” It worked about 90% of the time, but drawing the silence out longer and adding more audibly sarcastic sugar on the sir/ma’am would generally work at either getting them in line or provoking them enough to cross the line so we could hang up on them.
To me, please and thank you are kind of the poster children for politeness. Like you can’t be polite without them.
Btw are you in the US? I’m in Canada and I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say yes sir/no ma’am sincerely.
Comrade.
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.
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 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?”
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
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)
I think they mean “Sie”, which later for decapitalised as “sie” for female
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.
Funny, but problematic. I know it’s a joke.
I like the idea to use unexpected cumpliment, as “my connoisseur”, “my most esteemed”, “my commander”, “my captain”, “my sibling”, “my comrade”, “boss”, “friend”, or something.
Pointing at physical characteristics? Not as amazing.
Come to brasil where people are called champion, master, professor, doctor, or warrior.
Saying thanks to the cashier? “Thanks, doctor”
Edit: But Portuguese is gendered so I guess this doesn’t avoid the original problem… except in English it would
I quite like the idea of something in the spirit of “yes my good fellow”, with fellow obviously being a bit too masculine despite its chuminess.
What about using some generic gender neutral names like Robin or Quinn (even if their name isn’t Robin or Quinn):
“Yes my good Robin” or “Yes my good Quinn”
