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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.
Sir hasn’t been gender neutral in my military for like 30 years at least
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.
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.
Mage
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.
...why not just "magister" and avoid a word that already has very strong, current connotations with fantasy?
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.
Also if you have to hand someone off to another colleague, I find you can just use "we", and it still feels polite. At least compared to calling them "the customer" (clumsy) or "they" (weird, when they're right next to you). 😃
"So, we're looking for [product], and we need it to be [thing]. Oh, and we have a budget of £25."
Yes, I've done this, as well. It definitely works.
Comrade
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
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.
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 use "friend" a lot.
This one bugs me a bit. I’m sure it’s said with good intentions, but I have a client who calls everyone on my team “friend” whether or not she knows us, and it always rubs me the wrong way. We’re not friends, she’s the client in a professional setting, and she has never shown any interest in getting to know me enough to actually call me “friend” and have it mean something, so it always comes across as superficial and unnaturally folksy.
As someone who doesn’t have a ton of deep friendships, the ones I do have matter a lot to me, which means I don’t like to throw around the word “friend” lightly.
Could just be my own emotional hangups though.
Yeah this is a perfect example of why it doesn't matter how polite you try to be. Someone is going to be bothered by ANY language at some point. So long as you have good intentions, you've satisfied your end of the interaction.
I just call everyone "comrade".
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?
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!
just don't use any honorifics.
problem solved.
I work in 911 dispatch, understandably once in a while I get a caller who is just absolutely losing their mind over whatever is going on that they're calling about
And sometimes pretty much the only thing I can do to grab my callers attention and bring them back around to listening to me is to just kind of repeat sir/ma'am until I get their attention they come back around to realizing I'm trying to talk to them.
If I can get their name, I use that instead and it's more effective, but that's not always a given.
Just sitting there in silence until they get their shit together on their own doesn't work, and more likely they're going to just hang up on me.
And repeating whatever question I need answered really just kind of goes in one ear and out the other while they continue going off.
Their name or sir/ma'am is punchier, it has a way of cutting through their panic and grabbing their attention saying "you are being addressed right now and the person addressing you needs your attention"
And I really wish we had a good, gender-neutral equivalent of that. It needs to be polite and professional, and maybe a bit authoritative-sounding, so something like "dude" obviously won't cut it.
And I need it both for trans/non-binary people, and people whose gender just isn't clear on the phone because they're in a panic, calling from a potato, and/or just have a somewhat ambiguous voice.
Normally I just have to pick one and go with it, and they'll either correct me (in some cases, choosing the wrong one might actually be more effective at grabbing their attention because astonishingly (/s) people don't enjoy being misgendered and they jump at the opportunity to correct that) or they also just roll with it.
But I'd really like to avoid that if I can, and I haven't really found a good option for it yet.
Honorifics are part of my culture and tradition. I've let go of a lot of other things from my culture that interfere with loving my neighbor, but there's certain social mores I don't want to abandon. Honorifics are a way of showing respect to others in my culture, it is as ingrained as taking off one's hat and standing for a funeral procession.
Korean is easier, just call everyone Teacher. Problem solved.
Gentlepeople?
But what if they are an MMA fighter?
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.
Cant go wrong with "Partner"
"Scuse me Partner, is this seat taken?" Still slaps if you say it confidently enough
Got any of that good sarsaparilla?
Just say Y'all, it pretty much covers that
I use 'homie' sometimes. It's not always the right option but it's another arrow in the quiver.