When I was younger, I used “ma’am” and “sir” as respectful ways to address people. I still do to this day. Only once did I have a lady get mad at me for referring to her as “ma’am,” but it was so automatic that I couldn’t exactly stop. Never have I used either term with disrespectful intent.
The one that got me was being called “that man”.
My dad is “Mr. <our surname>” and he thought of his dad as the same, but both he and I have courted and expected the same title in various places and if you’re called that name enough times, you can kind of get used to it.
But when a small child almost runs into you and their mother chastises them with “Careful! You almost ran into that man!” and “that man” is you. Oh boy. And another time “Why does that man look so sad?”. As you might imagine, I was not having a particularly good time before that small child said that.
But I suppose it wasn’t “that old man”…
Yet.
It’s funny, sir never held any connotation of age for me. But I’ve heard ma’am apparently does. Was she expecting another word? Like miss or something?
Yeah there’s no age implications for men because it’s either sir or sir.
She must be cisgender. Trans girls love being called ma’am.
I call every woman I don’t know “miss”. I’ve just seen too many of these meltdowns among my friends and girlfriends over the years, I don’t want to contribute to harm
Karens get the sarcastic inflected ma’am from me.