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… 🤔
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?
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
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.
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!
Not OP but I think that’s a darn good suggestion.
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. :-)
Clearly we need to start adopting Japanese honorifics that way we can just call people -san.