Oh, the irony…
And millions of people who disagree with you. But argumentum ad populum remains a fallacy no matter which way you slice it, particularly when the “millions” are speculative.
I concur. It’s irritating, cloying, and patronizing. I know that most of the people who do it usually do it out of habit to everyone (and since IME it’s often waitstaff who do it they must have found some benefit in it) but still, I’d rather they didn’t.
I find it odd how many people can hold in their heads both
The world is overrun with horrible, hysterical liberals who police the speech of righteous dudes unceasingly and are ruining America!, and
No one in real life ever disagrees with the righteous dudes.
“Everyone agrees with me, so when everyone attacks me, it’s not fair.”
I lived in the Pacific Northwest for four years. On my final trip back home to North Carolina, I stopped at a Waffle House in Virginia. The waitress called me “Honey,” and I nearly teared up: I knew I was coming home.
Which is to say, make allowance for cultural variation. Someone who calls everyone “Sweetie” or “Honey” isn’t necessarily being patronizing or diminishing. It’s very different to use the terms for everyone, and to use them only for women.
There’s a rash of ‘Have a blessed day’ going on around here. I kinda hate it. I cannot decide what it means. Who exactly is gonna do the blessing? How am I supposed to make it possible? How do I have control over it, anyway? Karma, good works?
But, saying all that, in the south sweetie, hon, even darlin’ is how waitstaff and clerks just do it.
Reply with “Cthulhu loves you”.
Oh I know, and I don’t complain (to them). They mean well.
Did you move to Gilead?
There’s this guy here at my work. I see him occasionally, passing by in the halls. Every single time, he says “Hey there sweetie”. I have no idea who he is. We’ve never met. We’re not even in the same building. It’s gotten to the point now where I try to actively avoid him, and especially avoid eye contact because it makes me feel so uncomfortable. But I’m sure if someone asked him about it, he’d be shocked, shocked I tell you, that it was taken as anything other than a normal greeting.
You are correct and reasonable. There are plenty of times where it would be rude or inappropriate. I was responding to begbert2 who literally couldn’t think of a single time it would be acceptable. That’s the nuttery that I’m talking about.
The first time someone used “blessed be” on me, it was in a business setting. I found it very confusing. Which religion was it? Several use that phrase. Why was he using it on me right then? Did I have a big “needs help” flashing over me? Turns out he used it everywhere, with everyone. Even signed text messages with it. It was incredibly annoying. It meant nothing, since it was clearly rote, and it was wholly inappropriate for the setting.
Beck you could return some “Handmaid” line when they say it, but they wouldn’t catch the reference. 
The 9 Types of Reply Guy: Read through each of them and see how many posts in this thread you can map to a Reply Guy!
You folks would be fun at a party.
This thread is as good an argument as any I’ve ever seen for a box-type forum over here. Stick octopus, Starving “for adolescents” Artist, and whoever else always comes into these threads to be head-pattingly dismissive of the overly sensitive, special snowflake feminists borne of today’s overly PC era in there where they can have an echo chamber circlejerk about how they long for the good ole days when the women and the darkies knew their proper place. Then they can jerk off all over themselves about how men are the true victims and how pissed they are that r/incels got deleted, and leave the rest of us to maybe have an actual fucking discussion without their relentless stupidity. I can dream!
You still haven’t provided an example of a time when it would be appropriate to call people chicks. You simply asserted that “millions of people” think the word is complimentary, which sounds to me like the kind of bullshit a bullshitter would make up when they have no argument because seriously, how could you possibly have data on that? Answer: you don’t. You just like calling people derogatory diminutives and thus assume that everybody else does too.
Nah, but I could use a good balm.
I can call my wife hot chick whenever I want. I heard another woman call women sexy chicks just a couple days ago. No one raised a fuss over that evil, objectifying, dehumanizing, and inappropriate behavior.
We can call each other cunts here. I suppose cunt is less of an insult than chick here in straightdope-bizarro land.
You have that over at giraffe. You need a safe space here as well?
And what’s up with the sexist nature of your argument? Perv.
And you used echo chamber non-ironically. Lol.
And contrary to what Octo-Goofus and Sir Starving Gallant seem to think, I don’t stop my day and deliver a lecture on to said clerk or counterperson. I smile (generally) and carry on with my day because I choose to take it in the spirit it’s meant.
NOW.
If it’s a co-worker who does this repeatedly, I’d probably make steps to make him stop: ask nicely, avoid interaction, or if need be, get someone involved. I only had to do so once with a man who insisted on calling me “honey”. I told him not to and he responded to me with “It’s Texas; everyone does it”. No. No, they don’t.
If it’s a clerk at a store I frequent, I might finally say “My name’s BeeGee. Why don’t you call me that instead of Sweetie. I’m not that sweet.” Or I might just let it go on because contrary to the Anti-PCers, it’s not necessary to fight every battle.
Or I might do like my Aunt Sandy did in the fifties (o, the golden years) when a clerk called her “Honey” in a way that sounded like “Trashy”:
Can I help you… Honey? (you can’t possibly afford anything here)
Thanks, Sweetie; I’m looking for house shoes fer Ma!"
BUT if you ask in a discussion board why the terms are not appropriate or considered flattering, then it’s going to be discussed. See how that works?
Oh. And I AM middle aged supposedly sappy woman who learned from her aged old granny not to put up with nonsense.
Let’s not forget, as I pointed out in post #428, who it is that’s actually doing all the fussing and whining over this issue here. It’s you and others similarly complaining that even the mildest criticism of inappropriate sexualizing comments is “hypocrisy” and “PC run mad” and “victimization” and so on and so forth. You are the ones who apparently need the safe space.
I repeat: nobody was making any fuss at all about the original gently corrected digression into “hot chick” irrelevancies until a few male posters started persistently whining about the gentle correction.
I’m not saying you can’t criticize the comment. I’m saying that the comments that are being criticized and how they are being criticized make the nutty PC brigade look nutty. Don’t you see how that can be counterproductive when there are far larger issues to tackle? Why not expend that energy on real issues?
We have religions that preach women are inferior and subservient. We have art/entertainment forms that are highly misogynistic. In countries across the world women are second class maybe even third class citizens. Yet “hot chick” is this intrinsically sexist and great evil that needs combating?
Finally it’s hard for the pc run amok side to claim the moral high ground when they carve out many exemptions to pc-ness in order to have a convenient target to exploit for their own tribal reasons.