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Ma'am

In case you haven't noticed yet, I prefer talking informally. If people IM me at work, I usually greet them then follow it up with, "what's up?" There are a few reasons for this, but the most important one is that I think there's more character to it. There's more soul in slang, if you will. In fact, one of my very first blog posts was about this very topic. It just doesn't sound the same to use twelve five-dollar words when you can use five normal ones.

In particular, somewhere along the line, I decided that I like the usage of "yes ma'am" and "yes sir." I don't know if I read it or heard it first, but the idea that you'd show respect in a such charmingly simple way struck a chord with me. Of course, it's always something that's portrayed as a country manners type thing. But it sounds right to me, so I use it. It's precisely why I say that normal, every-day conversation has more soul to it; there's a sense of humanity in that manner of speaking. It's not just the "please" and "thank you" that's automatically drilled into kids when they're young. It has undertones of actually showing respect to the person to which you're speaking.

Like I said, I do this at work. It's just how I talk. However, this can lead to some very interesting interactions:

  • Typos can suddenly get very, very interesting
    I will type "yes ma'am" in IMs when conversing with people. However, I'm fallible, and I screw up sometimes. This means that once in a blue moon, I will type "yes ma'ma" instead of "yes ma'am" and hit the Enter key before I catch my mistake (stupid muscle memory). Um, yeah. Luckily this happened while I was talking to a friend, but the ensuing laughter was ... quite hearty. Suffice it to say that I am now much more careful about typing that particular phrase.
  • If I'm distracted, bad things happen
    I once used "yes ma'am" instead of "yes sir" out loud. It was pretty awkward. I don't even remember what I was thinking or why I switched them, but I inadvertently emasculated someone. I caught my mistake immediately and apologized profusely, but the new guy in the cube over overheard some of it and started cracking up. Maybe it was a real-life version of what xkcd called Qwertial Aphasia (long story short, you sometimes type a word you didn't mean to type), or maybe I was thinking ahead to the next task I had to complete. Either way, there was much laughter at my expense.
  • People sometimes decide to turn the tables on me
    I don't quite remember the conversation, but I do remember that I was speaking with a female manager about some task I had to complete. At some point in the conversation, I replied with, "yes ma'am" out of sheer habit. We weren't speaking face to face, so I couldn't tell if she made a face or not. However, she replied with, "thank you, sir." Huh. That's never happened before. Sure, I hear it all the time in retail or what not, but that's because those folks HAVE to say that. They get in trouble if they don't use "sir" or "ma'am." This lady, however, retaliated with a "sir." I'm still at the point where it sounds weird to me when people call me "sir" outside of those retail situations, so this made to stop for about half a beat. Um ... well played.
  So yeah, this whole usage of "ma'am" has led to some fairly interesting side effects. All in all, though, I still like it. I'm just going to take my chances and keep using it.
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