Getting tired of 'sir' and 'madam'

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I know that this might be a trivial problem and, given the demeanor of a lot of posters on WP, make quite a few people mad but I am tired of people saying these words all the time. I live in a Northern state and this is considered rude in many cases to address people by sir or madam. Reasons:

1. It is considered to be unequal. Northern states are more egalitarian vs the South and it's considered odd to address someone by these names.

2. It's considered shrill and just sound harsh.

3. They are outdated. When someone addresses me by sir/madam it makes me think they are stuck in the past and in addition implying that I am an old fogy. People in younger generations like my own often find sir/madam to be quite insulting in that manner. Put it this way: if you were a stranger and addressed me by sir/madam I probably wouldn't take you seriously on anything you say nor would I consider doing business with you.

4. Using sir/madam repeatedly in a conversation in some cases can also be rude as it is considered pushing a person's gender into their face. It's like repeating someone's name several times in the same sentence and implies the person is an idiot or inept.

Yes, this post probably comes across as rude itself but there are a lot of people from other states relocating up here who don't bother learning about the local culture and it's getting tiresome. The locals don't adapt to you, YOU adapt to their community. Yes, there are people from Northern states who move south or west and don't adapt to their new home. However, I live up here...you don't. We are discussing the North, not the south or west. Yes, you might come from a community where the social rules are different but that is no excuse to not attempt to abide by what is considered normal up here.

So that isn't said up north? My family from upstate NY said it.

I've lived all of my 63 years in northern states. Sir or Madam is perfectly acceptable between strangers, as in "excuse me sir, but I was in line and you stepped in front of me" or "Ma'am, did you decide what you want to order?" I would think it weird if someone I worked around or lived near or met at a party called me ma'am, but between strangers, it's a way of being polite.

I lived in Louisiana till I moved to Vermont about 5 & a half years ago. Like BeaArthur, I still hear sir & madam being used. Noone ever acted like me saying that was weird or anything.

I missed the part on what you consider normal. Or what you would prefer to be called.

We use Sir(Pan) and Madam(Pani) a lot in Polish. I didn't mind it when I were a kid - everyone but other kids and my parents/family were Pan/Pani. It made life easy. I only had trouble with aunts and uncles I didn't know well because I couldn't figure out if I should call them Pan/Pani or uncle/aunt.

Everything become different when I become an adult - suddenly I had to distinguish between adults younger and same age with me, with lower or equal social status, friends and people that told me to drop the Pan/Pani with them ("you") and adults older than me, with higher social status and strangers ("Pan/Pani"). It's a difficult task with my face blindness, poor people reading, poor age guessing ability and poor people memory.

Not to mention some people I always called "Pani" now want me to call them by their name, for example my mom's friend. It's awkward.

I also find myself unable to become accustomed to being called "Pani", especially by kids (it's different in a job place or university where it's normal to call everyone Pan/Pani unless told otherwise due to the formal rules). 6 year old will come up to me now and ask "Can Madam play with us?" instead of "Can you play with us?". It's just so weird!
And kids from my family that were calling me by my name a few years ago now call me aunt, because I am an adult!

Haha, most of the time I still use these polite forms automatically. Like Kiriae, I learned and used these these forms to strangers and older people when I was a kid. I find it difficult to unlearn this, so most of the time I still use it without even realizing it.

As a funny side note:
You can use these words in a subtle derogatory way, in which they imply staleness and distance.

> "I live in a Northern state and this is considered rude in many cases to address people by sir or madam."

I also live in a Northern state and I'd say it certainly isn't considered rude. It's polite.

I've been called honey a couple times recently.

I grew up in Michigan, where it is not only permissible to call strangers "sir" or "ma'am", but it is expected, especially if the stranger is a law-enforcement officer. Even calling a waitress by the name on her blouse might get you an odd look from her and a polite visit from her manager (please don't ask me how I know this).

Calling a waitress by her first name is a way to emphasize the probably already obvious fact that you've looked at her boobs.

We should just call everyone sir, so it can be like Star Trek or many other sci fi shows where the woman commanders and such are also called sir not just males. They seem to have omitted madam in the sci fi future...