"Leader DeLay"??? What's up with that?

[Beverly Flanigan]

At 10:17 PM 5/15/2005 -0400, you wrote:
>>----- Original Message -----
>>>
>>>LOL! I not only hear it, I say it! (I also say "Sir" - both of them often
>>>in the courtroom).
>>
>>I've been thinking about that. I always use "ma'am" with respect. And I
>>often use "sir" with respect. But sometimes I use "sir" as a means of
>>providing distance or separation.
>
>That's what "respecting negative face" is all about.
>
>There's also been nice (if dated) work on "ma'am" vs. "dear",
>"honey", and other terms of endearment (between strangers in
>commercial exchanges), most notably an old (1980) paper by Wolfson &
>Manes, "Don't 'Dear' Me" (in S. McConnell-Ginet et al. (eds.), Women
>and Language in Literature and Society, 79-92.  New York: Praeger),
>which explores age, sex, and regional differences (New England vs.
>Southern U.S.) in the choice of terms of address.  Don't know if
>there's been any follow-up since.
>
>Larry

I just put a grad student onto that article; he wants to see how people
address restaurant and shop people.  As I recall, the article was
particularly concerned with men "dearing" waitresses--oops, servers.