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… 🤔

"My friend" is pretty safe

Gentlepeople?

But what if they are an MMA fighter?

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.

Not really...

Like, yeah, probably in Star Trek, but that would have been a projected evolution of modern society, not a reflection of current reality.

Everyone would assume "sir" and if it's over an email no one is getting worked up about it.

But call a female officer "sir" to her face and I don't think it will go well

Comrade

Sa'am.

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.

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 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.

Cant go wrong with "Partner"

"Scuse me Partner, is this seat taken?" Still slaps if you say it confidently enough

FWIW, Sir is not gender neutral in Gamestop.

One of my favorite sci fi authors addressed it like this:

M.

Mr? Mrs? Miss? Ms? Nope. "M."

Steve Perry - great books. He did a bunch of licensed books for Star Wars and Aliens, but his own universe is excellent!

Got any of that good sarsaparilla?

Xir?

I can't not address a person, that's incredibly rude.

just don't use any honorifics.

problem solved.

I've written about this before, but "neighbor" or "cousin" or "my friend" usually work. If you can have a bit if fun with it, "Senator" is great. If plural, "folks".

You here lookin for the Sundance Kid too?

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.

Check their question again. It's pretty ingrained in some dialects

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.

It works for person's of middle eastern cultural descent for sure, but it's fairly casual for a native English speaker from Appalachia

In writing it works, in person, not so much.

Kinda like saying most churches are more interested in profits than prophets. It takes very precise pronunciation to deliver that one verbally lol

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.

I'd low key support using teacher. You could pull it off. If everyone can be "my friend," which is used, they can be teacher. Sends a nice mssg. Even if they are not my friend, they can be my teacher

No, I got yelled at when I didn't see.

Lean into the southern-ness and call them Honey, Sugar, or Sweetie?

It gets easier to pull off the older I get.

Your highness

"Citizen."

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."

Sir hasn’t been gender neutral in my military for like 30 years at least

My partner and I landed on "Captain" (or the truncated "Cap'n"). But that might be all the star trek we watch bleeding over (I never thought having "make it so, number 1" whispered in my ear would be so hot).

I can't think of one that would be as universal as the sir/ma'am pair.

I think it's probably most polite to ask them.

Or at least to assume one or the other, use it with an enquiring tone, apologise if corrected and move on.

that sucks.

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

Yes, I've done this, as well. It definitely works.

Same, USAF but decades ago. It was actually the USAF protocol office I called to verify the “mister” address for WO. Not because we had them, but because they still have protocol for how to address them, generally army chopper pilots if I recall.

eta: I should also clarify that I don’t know that to be true. It could easily be one of those ID-10t situations where somebody tricked us into calling protocol and they went along with it. Could be complete bullshit.

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.

When I served (2002-2022), we were always told that warrant officers are technically officers, so treat them the same as any officer. So we would've addressed them as Sir or Ma'am if we came across them. As well as saluting them if we met them outside.

I don't recall ever addressing anyone as "Mister" in the service. Heck, I retired a few years ago and now I feel weird when people call me Mr. [Last Name]. I got so used to being called by my rank and last name for 2 decades. Mister just sounds wrong.

I feel like I might get a call from HR if I use those.

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.

Comrade

I was actually going for 1960s Batman.

You can address someone without gendered pronouns... they even gave examples.

Ants are eating Jim

But that won't fuel the internet discourse™!