Friday, May 27, 2005: "mam" for "ma'am"
Quote-''As people head out to paint the town red this Friday, or enjoy the service at a hotel this long, Memorial Day weekend (in the U.S.), they are likely to hear waiters and others utter this polite form of address often. It's a very common word with a very uncommon spelling that contains an apostrophe (to replace the D dropped from "madam" to make a shorter, less formal and thus more friendly word). There's no reason for this simple term to have a complicated spelling: "mam".''
I agree, don't you?
Ma'am.It's just slang and sounds like slang
It shows how much the cowboys respect their women, minimising, mutilating, abbreviating,etc the literally Madam (mædem)“ma dame” French in origin…
"Mæm" sounds lazy and disrespectful…for many Educated American women...
<<"Mæm" sounds lazy and disrespectful…for many Educated American women... >>
What are you talking about? In American English, "ma'am" is not slang and it is a very common polite form of address. Why would educated American English find this disrespectful?
I rarely ever hear or see "madam" used unless it's in a formal business letter ("Dear Sir or Madam:") or as a woman's title of rank ("Madam President", "Madam Ambassador').
<<Why would educated American English find this disrespectful? >>
I meant to say "educated American women..."
"Ma'am" IS a slang and but is used as a polite way to address a woman. It comes from the word "madam" - hence the apostrophe (') that's used in place of the absent letter "d".
I myself that I rarely see "madam" in use outside of formal letters and like, and I even more rarely hear it in actual spoken usage. But then, I also rarely hear "ma'am" actually being spoken around here (same thing with "sir" outside the military), and it sounds rather antiquated with respect to actual usage here, even though it doesn't sound quite as overly formal as the word "madam" actually being spoken. For the record, "here" is southeastern Wisconsin, just so you have a reference point for the above.
"Ma'am" IS a slang and but is used as a polite way to address a woman. It comes from the word "madam" - hence the apostrophe (') that's used in place of the absent letter "d".
First off, words can't be *a* slang--words are simply "slang" or "a slangword." And, "Ma'am" is not slang. Just as Travis said, I barely even hear "ma'am" here in California anyway (much less "madam")..."ma'am" sounds weird and is a term many (even older) women don't like to be called here. As I mentioned on an earlier post about this, my mom raised me not to say things like "sir" and "ma'am" because here they have the sense of creating an awkward, unnecessary and artificial sense of distance between two speakers, and especially with women, makes them feel old.
Judge Judy uses "madam" all the time and I recently found myself addressing this one lady with "madam". lol
"But then, I also rarely hear "ma'am" actually being spoken around here"
Travis and Kirk,so what term do you use instead ?
I am not Travis or Kirk, I frequently just use "miss" to address all women. Unlike Travis, I use "sir" for men, though I will use "mister" too.
"Ma'am" is a completely respectable word.
And it is the correct word to use when addressing a female officer of higher rank than oneself.
I've a question : Do I say "Mister" or "Sir" to a man I met in a street or who I don't know ?
Curious, I don't use any term for such, really. And even the titles "mister", "misses", and "miss", besides a set of rather limited usages, such as when referring to two married individuals, who share the same last name, without making reference to their first names, referring to teachers in a grade school environment, formal business letters, and so on, seem rather dated in actual speech to me.
Travis and Kirk, if you were women over 40, you'd hear "ma'am" often. But I think that in most parts of the US, it's primarily used by store clerks. From my observation of store clerks in San Francisco, Filipino store clerks tend to address all adult females as ma'am, while non-Filipino clerks use it for women "of a certain age," and I suppose that age is a subjective matter.
Like Kirk, I wasn't raised to use "sir" or "ma'am." Even among store clerks, there are those who don't use those forms of address.
I've only heard people use "madam" humorously or to refer to the madam of a brothel.
I just reread the first post, which was about the spelling of "ma'am." Not only do I not feel it's necessary for the word to have a "complicated" spelling, I also don't feel it even needs to exist.