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

[Wilson Gray]

When I was taking a course in Japanese, the professor dictated some
sentences on the topic of shopping. Afterward, a classmate asked,
"Yoshiko-sensei, weren't those sentences in the non-honorific forms?"
To which the sensei replied - sneered, actually - "Oh, you don't have
to be respectful to those shopgirls!" Her tone made me glad that I was
black in the U.S.A as opposed to being a working-class kurambo in
Japan.

-Wilson Gray

On May 16, 2005, at 11:00 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "Leader DeLay"??? What's up with that?
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> --------
>
> "Ma'am" is used daily here in Knoxville, even by undergraduates,
> exactly as Duane describes.  I had to switch over from employing
> "Miss" that way so that people would instantly grasp what I was
> saying.  Otherwise, I'd use "Miss," formally, to address any
> relatively young woman whose name I didn't know.
>
> JL
> Duane Campbell <dcamp at CHILITECH.NET> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Duane Campbell
> Subject: Re: "Leader DeLay"??? What's up with that?
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
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>
> ----- Original Message -----
>
>> I hear "Miss" generally only in restaurants, stores, etc., when one
>> wants
>> to get the attention of the so-addressed person. No one would be
>> caught
>> dead saying "Ma'am" anymore, right?
>
> I use it all the time, especially with strangers. "Excuse me, Ma'am,
> could
> you help me?"
>
> D
>
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