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… 🤔
Your highness
Greetings, sentient!
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.
Sir is gender neutral in fictional militaries. Every woman holding a commission I ever encountered was ma’am. Didn’t matter the country.
Yes, Star Trek is fictional.
But the way you’ve formatted your first comment is “this thing is a military thing, as can be seen from this fictional military” which doesn’t necessarily imply said thing is fictional even though the military you’ve used as an example is.
FWIW, Sir is not gender neutral in Gamestop.
Sir, this is a Wendy’s.
GameStop has Wendy’s now?
Yeah, Wendy’s nuts are loose but your manager “borrowed” the socket set and now your clearance display is on the ground.
Wen deez nuts are loose
It means I’m getting old…
No, I got yelled at when I didn’t see.
Not sure what military you served in, but the one I served in definitely didn’t call women sir until instructed otherwise. However, “mister” may be correct for all warrant officers.
Um, Starfleet… as mentioned (Star Trek Voyager… Star Trek’s Starfleet is inspired by the Navy).
I never served… Mostly due to health reasons
Oh I misunderstood you. I thought you were using the Star Trek reference as just a supporting claim that militaries follow this practice. But I see now you meant only in that context.
Yeah, I meant that Star Trek did it, and Star Trek is (supposed to be) based on the Navy, so as one who’s never served, I really only have Star Trek Voyager (which had a female captain) to go by.
With female bosses, I’ve always asked them if they want to be called sir or ma’am. It sounds like a good way to catch hands, but if you ask out of respect and good faith, chances are you’ll be answered in kind.
I served in the US Air Force. Everyone was “Sir” or “Ma’am” and it was very gender-specific. Even for the few years we allowed transgender folks to serve (before Trump banned them), you referred to them by their preferred transition title.
We don’t have warrant officers in the Air Force, so I can’t speak to their title of address.
Same, USAF but decades ago. It was actually the USAF protocol office I called to verify the “mister” address for WO. Not because we had them, but because they still have protocol for how to address them, generally army chopper pilots if I recall.
When I served (2002-2022), we were always told that warrant officers are technically officers, so treat them the same as any officer. So we would’ve addressed them as Sir or Ma’am if we came across them. As well as saluting them if we met them outside.
I don’t recall ever addressing anyone as “Mister” in the service. Heck, I retired a few years ago and now I feel weird when people call me Mr. [Last Name]. I got so used to being called by my rank and last name for 2 decades. Mister just sounds wrong.
Not really…
Like, yeah, probably in Star Trek, but that would have been a projected evolution of modern society, not a reflection of current reality.
Everyone would assume “sir” and if it’s over an email no one is getting worked up about it.
But call a female officer “sir” to her face and I don’t think it will go well
Sir hasn’t been gender neutral in my military for like 30 years at least
Gentlepeople?
But what if they are an MMA fighter?
Go by language rules - It.
Oftentimes I just leave out honorifics when I am unsure of the gender or preferred terms of the person I am speaking with. If I know for a fact that they are non-binary then “Mx” can work, though not everyone is fond of it and I would hate to offend. Honestly I usually just substitute it in ways such as the below (though i speak pretty casually in general).
What can I do for you friend?
Sure thing love
Have a nice day hun
“Mx” can work
Writing it is one thing, but how are you supposed to pronounce it? It can’t possibly be “mix;” that’d be like pronouncing “Mr.” as “murr” instead of “mister.”
You are correct in that “Mx” is most often pronounced as “mix”. It isn’t a direct abbreviation like “Mr” is to “Mister”, but rather derived as a neutral variant to those types of honorifics, so don’t over think it. This is the wild world of the English language after all
Personally, I’m in favour of “mamsir”, which is the obvious compounding of “ma’am” and “sir”. The Internet tells me it’s used in the Philippines, but I could have sworn I first heard of it being used in India 🤷♀️
In a similar vein, what are you supposed to call aunts/uncles that are non-binary?
Auncles
Certainly not late for dinner. Or at least that’s what they tell me
Ran into that problem with my enby friend. Specifically in the jokey context, like when a friend asks you to do something and you say “Yes Sir!” Or “Yes Ma’am!” in a kind of over the top way. They hadn’t really thought about it either and they were flummoxed too. We wound up with “Yes Colonel!”
Yes chef!
Marcie calls Peppermint Patty Sir, so maybe that works. Only half joking.
I use ‘homie’ sometimes. It’s not always the right option but it’s another arrow in the quiver.
Homie comes from hommes, which is French for man/men. May also be closely related to hombre, which is man in Spanish. Definitely think it’s risky to use it as a gender neutral term even though it’s just regular slang in English.
This is just made up nonsense.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/homie
Might be a descendant of Latin “homo” (man), but that doesn’t matter a damn, x homie" just isn’t gendered and etymology doesn’t change that.
“Um ackshually it’s man in Latin!” ☝️🤓
Yeah, okay, thanks for proving my point. Probably shouldn’t be using a word that means “man” in several romance languages if your goal is to be gender neutral.
@jdr@lemmy.ml @Furbag@lemmy.world Wait, that wiktionary explanation seems weird too. I always thought of homie as being a derivative of “homeboy” or “homegirl”. I could be wrong, but I definitely started hearing homie after those two and have always thought that they were connected. In fact, the wiktionary page for homeboy lists homie as a related term, so to me it seems like the two pages are contradicting each other.
Mate
I use Mx or Mxtress with my Owner
How exactly are u pronouncing that? Like Mx = “em-ex”?
I kinda do Mix which they don’t seem to mind
I think boss works decent as a neutral way to respectfully address some body in a position of authority, I have refered to many a manager and or client as “boss” when I dont know know their name
M’theydy
