Insights
Spent 29 hours in the New York metro region this last weekend in honor of Dad's 72nd birthday. The highlight of Saturday afternoon was a somewhat raucous gathering in an East Village cafe (and NB that even before the raucousness the innocuous-looking manager of the cafe seated everyone in a somewhat secret back room while I was outside on the phone giving directions to J-ka and then when I came in and couldn't find anyone he said to me, "Oh, your family? They left without you -- didnt' you see?"). At one point our college-age waiter called me "Ma'am," which caused me to start lamenting that now that I'm a certain age (early late thirties, for those of you who have forgotten) no one calls me "Miss" anymore. "I don't know," said J. David, "I think that when people call you 'Ma'am' it's just short for 'mammary'." And the waiter didn't disagree, so maybe my cousin -- a man who, to the best of my knowledge, basically never interacts with mammaries of the female variety -- is right?
posted by Pangea at 2:11 PM
1 Comments:
My theory is that there are many young people out there in the service industry who do not know that the difference between "ma'am" and "miss" is one of age and not politeness, and who don't realize that for someone who is the age that they surely must think I am, "miss" is the more appropriate. That explains whey I get "ma'am"ed more frequently than "miss"ed these days.
This theory of mine amuses me greatly because it shows how deluded I am. No Occam's Razor for me!
Post a Comment
<< Home