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What about addressing a female subordnate officer as “Mister”?
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My feeling is, if you aren’t mature enough to deal with being called Ma’am, you aren’t mature enough to captain a ship.
Ma’am is what females old enough to conduct their own business are called. If you’re so vain that you prefer the youthful “miss,” no one is likely to be listening to a word you say, anyway. Ditto for if you believe that only men can hold a position of authority.
Those of us who have been in the military know that female officers are addressed as “Ma’am,” regardless of their cuteness level. Male officers are addressed as “Sir,” and if you address either one by rank, you’d better be using their last name with it. Navy might be different, maybe a sailor will come along with the final word on that.
Captain Eo, Michael Jackson as spaceship captain, was probably called “Miss.”
IIRC, in US real-world usage, superior officers are addressed as “sir” or “ma’am” depending on gender. Subordinate officers are addressed (by their superiors) by rank. Rank+lastname is used when there is a need to make clear which of the officers present are you addressing, and a “sir” or “ma’am” should follow close behind.
NCOs/POs are ordinarily addressed by rank/rate by both superiors and subordinates; only in special situations they get the “sir/ma’am” treatment, as in Maxxxie’s case, or the Marine DI’s at bootcamp.
Navy/CG CPO’s, Air Force Chief Master Sergeants, and Army CWO’s may be addressed as “chief”.
I’m not sure on how the real-world US or Royal(UK/Aus/NZ) Navies deal in modern times with their female personnel and the traditional “Mister” usage for junior officers (and ditto the Army for its WO’s)
In other armies the traditions are different – in many Latin American militaries they follow the French tradition and if the superior officer/NCO is in your c-o-c they’re addressed as “My Captain”, “My Sergeant-Major”, etc. while those outside the chain are “señor(a) Comandante” and so forth.
Science Fiction and Star Trek are probably getting everything wrong as to how the terminology eventually evolves.
Oh god, that reminds me of something that happened in my Flight not so long ago (I left 20FLT about 10 years ago).
A female CUO (Cadet Under Officer) transferred to Queensland SQN AIRTC from North Queensland SQN. CUOs, being the cadet equivalent of an officer, are to be referred to as Sir or Ma’am.
Apparently in NQAIRTC, this was not the case. Female CUOs (and Warrant Officers) were not to be called “Ma’am”, but “Miss”. Male CUOs and Warrant Officers were to be addressed as “Sir”.
Why the disparity? Apparently female officers are not mature enough to be called Ma’am. By this logic, my ranking CUO (the CUO who had transferred to my Flight), who was probably 20 at the time, was not as mature as a 16 year old male CUO. :rolleyes:
It made me sick that even in these so-called enlightened times (ok it was 10 years ago, but still), this sort of sexism was not only acceptable, but imposed by this particular Squadron.
Max.
Houston, we have a problem.
I never , ever ever in my long legged life
Addressed a monkey as my wife
Women are captains.
A son is brought alive into the emergency room along with the father who is DOA. THe doctor who is called on scene says “I cannot operate, cos he is my son.”
Who is the doctor?
Um, is the doctor the father of the DOA and the grandfather of the living patient? The word “he” is ambiguous - it could refer to either of the victims.
Or, the DOA is the grandfather. Why would you say “the father,” instead of “his father?”
:smack: Oh, duh. The doctor is the kid’s mom! Which explains why you asked this riddle is in this thread.
The Queen of England is referred to as Ma’am. I would think any female officer in the
military would much prefer to be addressed as “Ma’am”, rather than Sir.
On another note, I don’t understand why some women object to being called “Ma’am”, if you don’t know their name, unless the woman is obviously under age
30 or so, when “Miss” would be more appropriate. I feel Ma’am is the proper and polite form of address to an adult woman. I addressed a lady at work once as “Ma’am”,
who was quite obviously at least 40, and she was extremely offended, and said, “I’m nobody’s grandmother!” My boss told me to ignore her, that she was a nut case.
We prefer that old threads (and this one is 13 years old) be revived only for a good reason. Feel free to start another thread if you want to discuss this anew. Thanks.
Thread closed.