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Wow, and here I thought I was being respectful of others when I use Ma'am and Sir!! Yes, I am from Texas and I find I get more respect when I treat others with respect by saying "Yes Sir" or "No Ma'am". And I try to address others that would be a lower status than me(custodians) as Miss (first name) and Mr. (first name).
Wasn't it on the TV show "Dallas" that Ellie Ewing was called "Miss Ellie" and nobody had trouble with it?
You have already gotten crap for this remark, and I don't want to compound it, but the thing that this behavior reminds me of is the "Old South" practice of referring to elderly female slaves as "Auntie." It was supposed to convey respect. I'm sure you can see the irony there.
Wow, and here I thought I was being respectful of others when I use Ma'am and Sir!! Yes, I am from Texas and I find I get more respect when I treat others with respect by saying "Yes Sir" or "No Ma'am". And I try to address others that would be a lower status than me(custodians) as Miss (first name) and Mr. (first name).
Wasn't it on the TV show "Dallas" that Ellie Ewing was called "Miss Ellie" and nobody had trouble with it?
What's Texas got to do with it? I thought that was odd enough until I got to the lower status remark. W in the actual F? Lesser status than you?
If 'Dallas' is a point of reference for you, you clearly need to be brought up to speed.
By the way, you DO know that Dallas was fiction, right?
Beats me. It is an honorific, spoken with the specific intent of being respectful.
So if you're getting bent out of shape because someone calls you ma'am or sir, then you are being petty. I mean, the world could use a bit more politeness and respect, if you ask me, in whatever form it takes.
Agree completely. Anyone who complains about this is being quite petty. Imagine criticizing someone who addresses you with a modicum of respect--hard to believe, but it does happen.
I don't see how hard it is to go take a meal order without using the so called honorifics of Sir or Ma'am.
Some people just don't consider those terms in any shape or form as an honor. Notice I said 'some' people? Fine, if you want to call me "Ma'am", I'll endure it once and I mean ONCE throughout my meal but if you are going to slam me with the 'Ma'ams', you can bet your sweet bip, that I will not likely come back. I think, I am more than right to prefer how I would like to be addressed.
I don't see how hard it is to go take a meal order without using the so called honorifics of Sir or Ma'am.
Some people just don't consider those terms in any shape or form as an honor. Notice I said 'some' people? Fine, if you want to call me "Ma'am", I'll endure it once and I mean ONCE throughout my meal but if you are going to slam me with the 'Ma'ams', you can bet your sweet bip, that I will not likely come back. I think, I am more than right to prefer how I would like to be addressed.
Servers aren't mind-readers, and it's better to err on the side of manners than to presume familiarity. If you don't want someone calling you ma'am, you should correct them when they do it. Otherwise, if they continue to call you that, you have no one to blame but yourself.
Personally, I think that statement says more about you and less about them. Further, what if you don't know the person's name? Is 'Hey, Bub!' preferable?
Maybe we should all just switch to a generic "YO." Then again, even Rocky paired it with "Adrian."
Servers aren't mind-readers, and it's better to err on the side of manners than to presume familiarity. If you don't want someone calling you ma'am, you should correct them when they do it. Otherwise, if they continue to call you that, you have no one to blame but yourself.
I have, but they still did. Clear?
I quit going there.
I'll answer as someone who grew up in Indiana. To get someone's attention, one would simply say, "Excuse me" or "Pardon me" or something to that effect. It would never have occurred to us to tack on a sir or ma'am to it. Just not done there. I know that seems completely weird to people from the south, but it's no more weird than the fact that southerners don't call anyone "mademoiselle" or "Lady so-and-so." It's just a simple matter of geography and dialect.
However, people have stopped being raised properly and to say it's regional is uneducated at best. There are many countries all over the world who don't call elders or anyone they don't know by the first name.
People have lost respect for other people in America, and it is very rude actually.
I teach my kids how to properly address other people.
As a child, it was pretty much drilled into me that I should respect my elders. It seems as if everytime I try to be polite and formal to strangers by addressing them as Sir, Ma'am, Mister "Jason", or Miss, they prefer not to be addressed that way, but instead their first name. It becomes a habit that's hard to break for me.
If something like this was supposed to sound, polite, formal and professional, why do people prefer not to be addressed that way?
I don't get annoyed, but it isn't normative in the places that I have lived - the North East, the middle Atlantic, California, New England and the northern mid west.
Ma'am also confers a degree of age over, say "miss". Some women are uncomfortable with that.
It's just a regional difference. People who are not from the South, can and often are, polite without using these terms.
When I am visiting family in the Carolinas or Arkansas, I hear it and it's nice.
It's all good. regional differences make our country so interesting.
I was raised "properly" also. But we don't use those terms.
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