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!
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.
So you’ve gone an entire lifetime saying these things with no problem, and then one day you encounter someone who’s decided to request “they them” pronouns, and youre going to drop this entire habit?
Did this person signal to you that you’d hurt them somehow? It sounds like they corrected an error on your part. Unless they displayed some anger or hurt, perhaps it’s just that you used the same pronouns everyone else does by virtue of how they present themselves, and then they corrected you, and you can use their pronouns from here on out.
I don’t think you should model this as a situation where you hurt someone. You used wrong info, got corrected, and you can move on.
Don’t start misgendering 99% of the people you meet just because one person corrected your assumption once. Don’t do that. Your cultural upbringing is not garbage to be discarded so easily.
Dude is trying to be more considerate in his life and your response is basically “don’t” lmao wild
Yes, please and No, thank you do me fine
I wouldn’t worry too much about it. Strangers shouldn’t expect you to know everything about them.
That’s probably fair.
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.
I’ll often just go for a “thank you kindly!”. It has the same flow.
That IS pretty good…
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.
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.
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 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.
Stop showing deference. No gods, no masters!
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.
I speak some German and Spanish with the formal You (Sie and Usted) and it’s handy but adds complication as a learner.
[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.
unearned respect
I suspect this here is where the break is. I don’t think respect needs to be earned, I think all humans, all creatures, all things are worthy of respect by default. Sure, you can lose respect, but the default interaction with a stranger should be a respectful one.
I actually totally agree. All people should begin worthy of our respect simply because we are humans, and our language should reflect that. Where the break is for me is that (again, for me) honorifics and similar terms imply hierarchical respect or deference, and that’s where the “earned respect” comes in. My respect for you as an equal is yours to lose; my respect for you as superior is yours to earn. In my language community, regular old please and thank you communicate the first kind, while honorifics convey the second.
And it’s always demanded in completely unrelated ways, too. When you can’t be right or at least explain yourself, be a lil’ bitch.
“They’re older so you have to suck up.”
- When ya got nothing left but the passage of time and a society that generally tries to keep you from dying…
“I’ve been doing this thing longer so I’m better.”
- Only perfect practice makes perfect. You can suck at a thing for a real long time.
“They have more money so they’re smarter.”
- We don’t have time for all the ways that’s false.
At least in Star Trek “Sir” wasn’t a gendered salutation. I don’t know about American society in general.
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.
I am, yes. It’s not uncommon in the South, and among military/former/family of.
I see a lot of unhelpful comments so far, so just let me say that I get where you’re coming from and am also seeking a good option.
In informal situations, I use “cousin” or “neighbor”; at work with patrons I use “sir” or “miss” if I think I can guess the gender and “my friend” if I’m unsure. (“Miss” instead of “ma’am” or “madam” because apparently Easterners have a weird age connotation with those terms that I honestly don’t fully understand.) I also use “friends” for a mixed group. But I’ve got nothing for a formal situation such as addressing a stranger on the street.
For those telling OP –and by extension, my Midwestern self– that just saying “excuse me” or “thank you” is fine… respectfully, no. That doesn’t address the person. I get that manners vary by region, but it doesn’t help us to be polite in an ungendered way in the regions we are.
I am also midwestern, and I have a problem with both miss and ma’am. The entire fact that there are two of them (and just the one for men) implies that age determines some portion of a woman’s societal value.
So as a fellow midwesterner, I’m not sure I agree with the idea that this is fully regionalized rather than a vaguer community-based (your church, your town, your parents’ profession, your school system…). I do hear that you want to be authentic to your own values and upbringing and completely appreciate that. But I’d consider whether the point of politeness terms and honorifics is to make you, the speaker, feel like you’re doing the right thing or about making your addressee feel seen and valued. If it’s the second, then you might consider whether it’s worth developing a new way of showing respect that can feel equally authentic in contexts where you may be unintentionally be making others uncomfortable.
worth developing a new way of showing respect that can feel equally authentic
That’s the whole point if this post, trying to find a new (to me) and authentic way of recognizing others without connotations of gender (and since you cogently brought it up, age).
That’s exactly how I’m thinking, thank you. I used service workers as an example, but it’s much wider then that. Strangers of any kind, especially people with whom I may want to be a little deferential. Older folks, people doing me a service, someone with authority like a teacher at my kids school.
Sir and ma’am are in addition to the please and thank you, which are the minimum.
I’m often on the opposite side of your cashier experience.
For me personally, I appreciate the polite gesture and understand the automatic nature it can be for some, especially southerners. So unless I can tell that I’m being “sir’d” with someone who has clocked me and wants to show their smoothbrain, then I don’t care much.
That said, I like the general idea of treating everyone with a nonconfrontational politeness, so I’ve been replacing formal pronouns with chief, coach, Bud, comrade, etc. Its ended up being even more disarming for most, and has a nice side effect of reducing the amount that I get misgendered.
Hope it helps, Have a great day chief!
It does, thanks Bud!
Thanks, boss.
Comrade.
I could do that!
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.
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.
