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… 🤔
This is hard.
Buddy? Sounds dismissive.
My friend? Sounds like you’re a scammer or a slimy salesperson.
Pal? Sounds mildly aggressive.
Dude? Arguably masculine.
Gen Alpha might have it right – “bro” seems to be gender neutral and used by both boys and girls.
Dude is absolutely gender neutral, didn’t you learn anything from Good Burger?
I agree, but not everyone agrees. And the problem with these “honourifics” (or whatever these are called) is that you have to get them right before the recipient heard them.
Good Burger came out 30 years ago and is only notable because there’s a song about it, dude was gender neutral before that. I’m not gonna change my speech to accommodate someone’s anachronistic definition of a word lol
Sibling; cuz; fam
I think technically it’s “bru”, possibly “bruh”
I dot know about all gen-x but I feel a strong aggressive feeling at ‘bruh’. Maybe the legion of kids saying it so often that you wish for a ‘literally’ as respite has given me opinions.
I assume this is what getting old feels like is all. We rolled our eyes at the adults who rolled their eyes at things we said that were “cool”. And now we roll our eyes at the young kids (who are in their 30s now). heh
I think young Millennials and Zoomers said “bruh”, and it was mostly used ironically.
Younger Zoomers (I think?) started using “bro” unironically, and it caught on big time with Gen Alpha. At least from what I’ve heard.