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… 🤔
I use “Captain”. It has been met with 100% success.
Came here to say this, or “cap”
Marcie calls Peppermint Patty Sir, so maybe that works. Only half joking.
Avoid honorifics with “there” (e.g. hello, sir - > hello there) or drop. Otherwise use boss, friend, chief or captain depending on vibes.
Folks. It’s my go-to.
Found Obama
Yo!
“OI CUNT” 🇦🇺
Scotland approves 🏴
I like to use “dude” or “guy” in a neutral way.
Some people who aren’t men have a negative reaction to being addressed as “dude” or “guy” nowadays. There’s been a lot of writing about it online by women and non-binary folks, and some people in my life IRL have expressed that feeling as well.
“Guy” and “dude” had been all-encompassing gender-neutral terms in my head for ages (I grew up in the 1980s-1990s when we were all dudes) but I’ve been making an effort to switch away from using them that way because I like my speech patterns to be kind by default.
M’dude.
I often say ‘man’ as an affectation regardless of gender, but today I accidentally said “thanks man” to an obvious trans woman at the kitchen store and felt really bad but she pretended not to notice.
That can be the challenge with Chief as well, it’s often said in a masculine context. Boss and Captain don’t have the same challenges (although penal culture can affect when Boss is appropriate to use)
Sorry for the non answer, but here’s a little rant:
Honorifics should go away. They unnecessarily create and restate hierarchies that don’t really need to exist.
On the receiving end, it has always felt weird being called “sir”. A smile is more than enough, thank you very much.
If a person who knows me calls me “sir” I ask them to not call me sir. I loathe being called sir lol.
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
Mage
I am legit going to use Magister as a replacement option for Mr/Mrs. It’s formal, archaic, and gender neutral. That’s the trifecta right there
I’ve seen enough posts related to etymology or historical use of words where they, either misrepresent the facts to fit a narrative or just make shit up, that I try to look it up my self. I also find etymology fascinating so that helps.
In this case they are absolutely right.
Both Mr and. Mrs,ms are derived from master and mistress (teachers) and both of those words stem from the Latin word Magister.
Edit: fun fact the English verb stick is the same word as the noun stick and comes from the same origin the Germanic word stik which also meant a piece of wood and to pierce/adhere or sharp. But wait it’s older than that the Latin word stigare also means pierce. And share the same ancestry, namely indo-european. Turns out we humans have been talking about sticks for a long time.
…crap, I’m cis male and I wanna be addressed as “mage”…
You can just do that ya know. Just be a wizard. Tell people to address you as such. Don’t even have to be trans you can change your name and everything
I work with magical lights that spring forrh from runes written in gold powered by ancient ichor and magic rocks.
…why not just “magister” and avoid a word that already has very strong, current connotations with fantasy?
Let’s hit “magister” and then work our way down. I swear to god I’d change the shit out of my pronouns to fit mage.
The issue, I guess, is that Mr./Ms. have had centuries to be normalized into common use, whereas “magister” still holds a bit of prestige or honor to it. I’m just spitballin’. I’m definitely going to read more into this when I have some time.
Although it was also my first choice, magister is masculine. Latin is a gendered language (with more than just m/f) and AFAIK magister isn’t neutral.
Magister does not change with gender tho, and generally it should not be a problem since we can just not consider the word gendered, the problem with gendered words is mostly given by social constructs, the word does not have any since it’s long dead
It doesn’t have to carry that genderedness into English.
I like that in Battlestar Galactica, Sir is the honorific for all military officers. They use madame for the president, but the military calls everyone Sir.
That’s not strictly a scifi thing, it was a prevailing real-world military custom for a long time to address all military superiors as “sir” regardless of gender. These days the thinking varies, and as women have been integrating into the military for many generations now in more and more places women officers may be addressed as “ma’am.”
Ok so reading the comments, from Appalachia, and I didn’t see it about anyone specific.
So the reason why nothing seems correct is because nothing new will have the same level of cultural history. If you’re trying to show social deference to people things like “friend” or “pal” won’t work, and “chief” sounds too informal.
You can still use “sir” and “ma’am” under most circumstances, so the question is more about your circumstances.
Are you trying to find something that replaces those honorifics all together, or do you want a backup third option in case someone says they are non binary?
Are you still in the same culture, or have you moved to a culture that doesn’t emphasize honorifics like you were raised with?
Clearly we need to start adopting Japanese honorifics that way we can just call people -san.
There’s like, 20 or more honorifics in Japanese. I think that -sama is more culturally equivalent for the Appalachian sir/ma’am, but those honorifics, iirc, usually have to go with a name or a job or something, while the Appalachian sir/ma’am can be used with strangers.
You’re amazing and so are your questions.
I’m looking for a third option for sir/ma’am, and a substitute for Chief that’s a bit more formal.
The culture I’m in now is not as formal, this isn’t so much finding something to work within the culture of this area as it is to marry my culture to the one I find myself in. I have very little to connect me to my people here and so the traditions I choose to keep are more important as a result. I like saying sir/ma’am. It’s the verbal equivalent of holding the door open for someone. But for some people being addressed that way is invalidating, and I want to meet people where they are, not force them to come to me.
I like Magister as a third option for Mr/Mrs., and Professor as a more formal Chief. But sir/ma’am has me stumped
Try using “Captain”. It has a high level of prestige and dignity without feeling too informal like “Chief”.
Well if you want to keep a similar motif, Cap’n is vaguely formal, vaguely military esque, and it’s gender neutral. Could be seafaring or land based.
You probably won’t find anything with the same level of formality as sir/ma’am, so you’re going to have to compromise a little bit on that front, but I think people will like the attempt regardless!
Reminds me of Dana calling Dr Robby «Cap» on The Pitt.
Not OP but I think that’s a darn good suggestion.
I truly admire your intent in this quest of yours. Admirable.
♥️
I would recommend asking the person what they prefer, for people you know ahead of time are non-binary. For people you don’t know ahead of time, choose whichever you think is most likely, apologize if you get it wrong, and ask them afterwards what they prefer.
Unless it is adopted widely by society, any third option will likely be met with confusion, and will still likely offend some people.
For a suggestion of a third option, however, might I offer “boss”? Slightly more formal than chief (in my experience), gender neutral, and allows you to make it as playful or respectful as the situation needs.
Just be aware that there are some slavery/prison connotations to boss in the US and some might be offended.
Was not aware of that! I’m assuming it is a South/West thing? Never encountered that in the North East
Mostly southern but definitely prisons as well. Predominant in chain gang type situations. An example more people might be familiar with would be Morgan Freeman’s line “bathroom break, boss?” in Shawshank Redemption when he’s been paroled and working at the grocery store. Yes, it’s from a movie but it’s also a reverence more likely to resonate. Shawshank takes place in the Northeast, hence prison…uh, “culture”.
Yeah, I’ve heard “boss” used in prison movies and such, but I’ve also heard it in places of employment (even when the person isn’t the supervisor or boss), between customer and service worker (both directions), with strangers (“Watch your step there, boss, there’s a sudden drop”). Never saw anyone offended by it in my own experience, so it’s news to me (and good to know) that there could be groups out there that are offended by it.
I only mentiomed it as a precautionary thing. I use boss all the time and can hardly recall receiving negative reactions, but it might be received poorly in other places. One of many downsides to living in a redneck state is that some intolerable shit is normalized.
As a foreigner whose native tongue has gendered nouns and adjectives: we default to sir to sir-presenting people, ma’am to ma’am presenting, and "sir? ma’am? " when unsure and clarification is needed.
I do not understand why you’d want to preemptively force gender someone by choosing a neutral/or newspeak/ form of address - to me it seems much much much worse than defaulting to asking for preference (“sir? ma’am?” option is the best - it declares you’ve noticed the interlocutor is a nb and passes the ball to them).
If you’re looking for 1 word that would always work, I recommend embracing your inner old British Lady and calling everyone pet (petal), dear or love. :-)
I was told “dude” counts as gender neutral these days, but people seem to differ in opinion on that one.
Just invent something. English isn’t even a strictly gendered language. Just don’t expect anyone to want to use a lame word like xir or some other derivative hipster shit you gotta stick the landing. You can just choose to create new words and see if something catches on noone will stop you from trying. People do tend to be masc or fem for a reason and probably don’t want to be treated like something inbetween so keep that in mind.
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 🤷♀️
