I was raised to address strangers and those I wish to show social deference to as “Sir” or “Ma’am”. It’s a difficult habit to break, as it is deeply engrained.
What is an equivalent gender neutral honorific that is relatively common in English? If I can’t break the habit I’d rather have a substitute word to use instead of an awkward pause in the middle of addressing someone
I’d just use Google to ask but I’d rather ask the people directly rather than an AI generated answer based off of Reddit threads
ETA: I suppose if Yessir and Yes’m work, Yesn’t could too? Mostly joking… but maybe… 🤔
Some of my friends use “yes them” jokingly to replace yes sir/yes ma’am. Certainly not correct in any grammatical way, but it does flow well enough and is kindof funny as long as the person being addressed doesnt mind.
Fucker!
FWIW, Sir is gender neutral in the military — this came up in Star Trek Voyager, anyway. Basically if your senior officer isn’t male, they’re sir until they tell you otherwise.
Having worked in the retail sector for some time, I quickly learned that appearances are often deceiving after a few embarrassing blunders on my part. I taught myself to call everyone ‘my friend’. I had no more problems after that.
Personally, I like “Sir” as in the Star Trek/Orville usage. It did happy things to my brain when the crew on the Orville referred to Commander Kelly Grayson (a cis woman) as “Sir”, respectfully referring to her by her proper title as a commanding officer. That was cool. I like the gender neutral “Sir” a lot.
But for casual usage, “Friend” or “Neighbor” is nice. “Hey, neighbor, you dropped this.” “Excuse me, friend, lemme reach around you here.”
I also like this interpretation. It’s the same gender neutral connotation as the Cali surfer “dude” or “bro” used equally with everyone.
Similar to “boi”
Just say Y’all, it pretty much covers that
I was raised in southern hospitality, so I know exactly what you’re going through.
I just stopped using pronouns altogether.
“Excuse me” “Thank you” “I appreciate you” “Do you know the way to San Jose”
Turns out 99% of interactions don’t depend on what genitals a person’s rocking. I guess if you’re asked to identify a suspect in a crime it might help? Point being, stop focusing on their crotch and what they’re doing with it 😁 you’ve been trained to be weird about it.
I just stopped using pronouns altogether.
“Excuse me” “Thank you” “I appreciate you” “Do you know the way to San Jose”
ALL of these have pronouns. At least one of them has multiple pronouns! Haha
