WestBaySlave -> RE: BDSM Conventions that turn you off... (3/14/2009 9:31:57 PM)
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ORIGINAL: camille65 quote:
ORIGINAL: LadyBanedeFaol Having grown up in an era when Sir and Ma'am were titles of respet for your elders I have always called my elders by Sir and Ma'am. It is really sad when terms that are meant to show respect are pushed aside because our Youth are so immature and have lost the ability to respect their elders who have lived their life and have a wold of wisdom to impart. I'm just about the same age as you but I never called any elders sir or maam nor did I know anyone else that used those. It was Mr So-and-So or Mrs So-and-so if I knew their names, otherwise it was simply a mannerly tone of voice. I think perhaps it isn't such much having grown up in a particular era so much as having grown up in a particular region. Both sound stilted and unnatural to my ear, yes I am a Yankee and now that I am living in Texas every time a stranger says "ma'am" to me I automatically look around to see who they are speaking to. Me and my family never used Sir or Ma'am, including my mother's generation and even my grandparents, at least while I knew them. We're all from Vancouver, though my grandparents are from the prairies, so I suspect there's a big variation between here and the American south. Growing up around BC and Alberta, Sir or Ma'am had two contexts: store clerks, waiters, general service people on one hand, and the military on the other. Outside of those, and even to some extent in those in the former context, it can come across as stilted and archaic ( my mom always hates it when waiters and the like call her "Ma'am" ). I've lived in the UK a couple times, and it is more prevalent there among the older generation, especially, but it's fading fast. People here aren't formal - at all. My teachers have always wanted me to call them by their first names, to the point where some thought I was being sarcastic when I used their last name with a Mr. or Ms. Around here, someone who tagged all their sentences with "Sir" or "Ma'am" would be considered eccentric at best, and unstable or sarcastic at worst.
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