I think the problem is that you eventually fall back to ‘any descriptive word that doesn’t somehow describe the other person sounds awfully clinical’. Like you get into ‘Hello citizen’ range pretty fast, and all of those are just awkward in modern parlance.
Someone mentioned comrade earlier, but even if you don’t have someone jump to DEM COMMIE conclusions, doesn’t that assume you’re both comrades and fall into the same trap as ‘friend’ or ‘pal’? Honestly ‘folks’ is about the best I can get, and that’s only a group.
I think a lot of the issues with ‘friend’ etc are also tone issues, where basically anything sounds shitty if you come off as snide.
Is that etymologically derived from horse or boss? Or…horse-boss. According to Slate it basically means ‘friend or partner’ which puts it right back into the ‘maybe smarmy’ territory.
I vote that if somebody says they don’t want to be called ‘boss’ or ‘sir’ or ‘ma’am’ by a server attempting politeness, the server should switch to ‘buddy’.
Maybe I’m reading more hostility than is strictly warranted into an area of uncertainty; but using ‘boss’ on someone(outside, perhaps, situations where one is literally dealing with an economic superior whose displeasure should be avoided, where I can’t see actually using it) seems like a lightweight conceptual analog to using ‘killer’ or ‘tiger’ on them.
Encouraging someone to calm down with an ‘easy there, killer’ is about as blatantly sarcastic and provocative as you can readily be about the fact that you view them as irrationally angry or worked up about the situation in a way that might be reminiscent of someone whose temper is to be feared; but you find their attitude so pathetic and contemptible as to not be remotely concerned by them or by any escalation risk.
‘Boss’ seems to have the same flavor but for dealing with circumstances of petty requests or mandatory niceties. “Do $service_worker_thing$ for you, boss?” has a strong “I don’t even care enough about you personally to want to spit in your coffee; but I profoundly resent this economically mandatory conversation” vibe.
In fairness to our imaginations, we don’t usually have cause to talk to genuinely random people. At a minimum the people we address usually come with a context of some type; and a context relative to yourself is most of the way toward being at least a temporary role.
There are definitely options that presume more or less beyond facts immediately salient or facts immediately evident; but there just aren’t many situations where you need to address a literally arbitrary person without even some sort of contextual cue.
That reminds me of something from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. The protagonist (as the title implies, an American who had traveled back in time and used his modern knowledge and skills to impress King Arthur) hated the idea of titles and refused to be knighted. The folks didn’t know what to call him until someone finally just called him “the boss” and he decided that he was OK with it.
Well, I think it is but as has been pointed above there’s a lot of personal preference involved. My family has roots in southern states where that is the norm. Also, children/younger people generally do not address older adults by their first name. That’s where Mister, Miss/Miz, or Auntie/Uncle +firstname come into play. To do otherwise can be asking for trouble! Hell, I still refer to my elder cousins as Cousin firstname, and I’ve been an adult for decades! Who wants to be on the receiving end of a conversation that starts like this?
I remember that the German word for nurse was “krankenschwester,” which was dated even back then (late '80s). I gather that’s finally been updated (pflege?).
I actually used something similar when I had to deal with an airline, though to be fair it was way, way back in 2018.
I use “peoples.”
Occasionally (depending on who’s gathered) I’ll walk into work with “Greetings, Earthlin-- er, uh, fellow humans!”
Well, the only reason I do it is to telegraph the message that “you are seen”, so I hope it’s getting across when I do it.
ETA: Just to clarify, not the kind of “you are seen” as occurs when Black folks go shopping, or driving, or whatever other normal acts they might be engaging in and don’t deserve the scrutiny. I’m talking about recognition and respect.
HAAA my thoughts, exactly. Then again, i am probably the only one here who’s watched Cbs Sunday and 60Minutes since i was in my (one was in one’s) twenties…
I made the mistake of asking a lady who was older than me to “please, you don’t need to call me ‘sir’” as she was doing it constantly. It was just her being polite, but I felt I was in the position of deference to her, both in age and the business relationship (she was the customer in this case); and I’m also not much of a ma’am/sir user anyway. Well, the mistake is that she took it way to much to heart and now when I see her if she lets a genial “yes sir” out to me she shirks and apologizes and I feel terrible for ever bringing it up.
Or the server could just drop the honorific all together? So we go from “And for you sir?” to “And for you?” It conveys the request for information, it addresses the party, and as a bonus it drops the pointless gendered bullshit.
I hope the habit dies out. If I don’t already know you’re talking to me, adding a “boss” or “buddy” or “sir” or “ma’am” isn’t going to change that. If I do know you’re talking to me, why do we need the honorific?
I realize in times past it used to denote respect, but as mentioned above, it just doesn’t always anymore, and sometimes seems almost weaponized, like, I can be a bit of an ass to someone and as long as I use the right words (generally sir or ma’am) no one can accuse me of being rude.
When I still presented masculine I’d often encounter people calling me “sir,” especially at my VA hospital. On several occasions I asked them to not do that to which they’d inevitably say something along the line of “I’m just trying to show you respect …” None of them ever seemed to have a good answer to “If you want to show me respect, you’ll not refer to me by a word I’ve asked you to not use for me.” It’s much less common now, and they do tend to correct themselves quickly when I mention it without trying to justify it, but it’s still an irritation.
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