I was not raised to say “sir” or “ma’am,” so those words have never been part of my regular vocabulary, except for three years in the Army when they were forced on enlisted personnel as the required way to address officers.
I say this without regret or pride. It’s simply a fact of my life and, perhaps, gives me some objectivity on the question of whether those forms of address are important to an ordered society and whether their disappearance should be lamented or celebrated.
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