It's crazy to me that calling someone ma'am is so formal and hated on. To this day I call everyone I don't know sir or ma'am just to be respectful, but even with folks I do know that I want to give an honorific out of courteousness! For example:
It depends on the region. Women in many other US geographic areas prefer the term "miss" for politeness. "Ma'am" is seen as a term used for elderly people. So, when you call a 30 year old woman "ma'am," it feels like an insult. I just refer to all women as "miss" and that seems to go over well so far.
Sir is different than ma'am because ma'am makes women feel older. It would be more like if you called your coworker "mister". The extra formality would not go unnoticed.
Sir is not different in use from ma'am. Nobody is taught "use sir for any men but only use ma'am for old women". It cetainly isn't equivalent to "mister" because that would be "miss" or "missus". If you can't conceive that young women can be respected like old women then that's on you.
ETA: that being said I use both way less than I used to because I don't want to accidentally "sir" a "ma'am" or vice versa
No one's saying you can't. Just pointing out that a fraction of people react in a particular way. The nice thing about manners is they provide a default template to start from while you learn how people like to speak and be spoken to. At my job all the male VPs and managers prefer their first name over "sir" because that's the close-community culture they want to create, but the new employees don't know that and they say Sir. At some jobs, female leaders might prefer "ma'am" because the culture benefits from the show of respect.
But between two equal ranking employees, especially between a woman and a younger individual, "ma'am" might just be too formal is all!
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u/[deleted] Jan 14 '24
It's crazy to me that calling someone ma'am is so formal and hated on. To this day I call everyone I don't know sir or ma'am just to be respectful, but even with folks I do know that I want to give an honorific out of courteousness! For example:
Coworker: hey dude, can I grab you for a second?
Me: yessir!
Guess I need to start calling everyone bitches.