[Ads-l] unisex "Sir"

[Joel Berson]

Responses interspersed.
      From: James A. Landau <JJJRLandau at NETSCAPE.COM>
 To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU 
 Sent: Wednesday, November 11, 2015 8:00 AM
 Subject: Re: [ADS-L] unisex "Sir"
   
A female US Army captain whom I worked with in 1972 told me "WAC officers are used to being called 'sir'."

The standard way of answering a telephone when I was in the Army was "[unit name] Private x speaking, sir!" or for the orderly room at night 
"[unit name] Charge of Quarters speaking, sir!".  I'm sure that many an enlisted man must have continued using "sir" in the conversation even after discovering the caller was female.

What's wrong with a female earning a Master's Degree?  What female would object to an MS after her name?

JSB:  But there are not only the sciences.  In the humanities it's MA.  Clearly sexist and disrespectful.  Perhaps we should go back to the classic AM and SM.  (I have one of the latter, as it says on my diploma.)


Doesn't anybody remember that in the Peanuts comic strip, Marcy always calls Peppermint Patty "sir" (this appeared in the past Sunday's New York Times crossword puzzle).

JSB:  I do, but you beat me to it (I'm not an early bird).  There clearly is a tie-in between Supergirl and "The [new] Peanuts Movie."

Joel

  - Jim Landau



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