Speaking to older people

Yes,its considered more personal...

wil meneer nog wat koffie.

wilt U nog wat koffie.

No way would I address my grandfather as "Sir."

Unless he IS a Sir, of course.

sir
1297, title of honor of a knight or baronet (until 17c. also a title of priests), variant of sire, originally used only in unstressed position. Generalized as a respectful form of address by c.1350; used as a salutation at the beginning of letters from 1425.

sire
c.1205, title placed before a name and denoting knighthood, from O.Fr. sire, from V.L. *seior, from L. senior "older, elder" (see senior). Standing alone and meaning "your majesty" it is attested from c.1225. General sense of "important elderly man" is from 1362; that of "father, male parent" is from c.1250. The verb meaning "to beget, to be the sire of" is attested from 1611, from the noun.

Adam, even <sir> is French !

Really?
We use sire in dutch...(pron.a bit like 'siren' without the n)

<< In America it is possible in some areas or contexts to say things like "ma'am"/"sir," but you have to be careful, because some people, especially older people, are offended by those because you're using a different form with them ("singling them out") and they don't like the distinction--mostly because it implies you think they're old. We were raised to avoid using address forms like "ma'am/sir" if at all possible, because it's usually not necessary, and often creates more social awkwardness than it supposedly helps (I'm not speaking for all regions...I'm just talking about here). My mom is not sensitive about her age at all (she's in her late 40s) but I think she dislikes being called things like "ma'am" because it sounds weird, and it creates an artificial sense of distance. >>

I agree, and I believe it's because these days, being not young is not considered desirable or worthy of respect. I recall my grandparents (born at the end of the 19th century) being rather pleased at being called Ma'am and Sir, but I started being called Ma'am (I was in my 40s), it was a very unpleasant shock. I'm used to it now, but when it first started happening, I noticed it was only very young store clerks who addressed me that way.

Not everyone young calls me Ma'am, though. There are people who seem to be able to communicate with people of any age without that distancing form of address and tone of voice.

<< I agree, and I believe it's because these days, being not young is not considered desirable or worthy of respect. >>

Not in the U.S., anyway.

I think there's a lot regional variation to the use of "sir" and "ma'am" in America. It seems like a lot of southerners use it when addressing older people - especially after the words "yes" or "no". I specifically remember one time I was watching the Late Show, and Dave Letterman was talking to a southern teenager who consistently said "yes sir" and "no sir".

Ah, yes. I went to a performing arts college in North Carolina, where there were lots of non-Southerners. I recall a guy in my ballet class saying "Yes, sir" to one of the teachers, which elicited snickers from quite a few people, and a bemused expression from the teacher. That was in the late '60s, and I think many of the Southern students had already dropped that custom, but this guy's father was in the military, which probably had something to do with it.

At least here in Wisconsin, even "Mr.", "Mrs.", and "Ms." seem rather old-fashioned as a whole, and I don't hear them actually used a whole lot, except for referring to individuals that one doesn't know their first names, in formal business contexts, and for referring to teachers in grade school and like. In normal contexts, people are at least here usually just called by some variant of their first names, or in a few instances that I know of, by primarily their /last names/ (I don't know how certain individuals got to be referred to by such, but I just know some individuals who at some point started getting referred to by just their last name, and it just happened to stick). In normal conversation, in most cases, titles and like, or even first name *and* last name, are generally not used, except when multiple individuals in the same context have the same first name, and the use of last names is necessary for disambiguation.

Travis:
It's pretty much the same situation here in Massachusetts.

When I was a little kid, in the 1950's, I think it was still the norm for children to refer to all adults as Mr./Mrs./Miss, but for some reason, in my neighborhood in San Francisco, all the kids called each other's parents by their first names. It was a bit of a culture shock when I went to North Carolina to hear college students calling everyone else's parents (when they visited) Mr. and Mrs., even when they knew them.

The only kind of use of titles that is prevalent around here today outside of formal contexts is ones like "Mom", "Dad", "Grandma", "Grandpa", "Aunt <first name>", "Uncle <first name>", and like. Hell, for the longest time, as a little kid, I never knew my maternal grandma's first name, simply because I knew her as just "Grandma".

<<We also use the word 'po' to show respect. Example:

oo (yes) -> opo
hindi (no) -> hindi po
salamat (thank you) -> salamat po>>

Oh, so that's what it! I'm a Mexipino from San Diego and I always hear my Filipino cousins say "po" whenever they talk to my mom and our grandparents but I didn't know its meaning.

<<I'm a Mexipino from San Diego>>

Oops. I should've written that as "Mexipina".

Oh, you're from San Diego? What part? I go to UCSD, and have a lot of Tagalog-speaking friends, especially from around the San Diego area, but a lot are from LA, too...I also didn't know that "po" was used kind of as an honorific--I'll have to remember that next time I hear it (not that I'd understand anything else as I don't speak Tagalog but at least I'd understand they were being polite...haha).