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To throw on in- sir is just a nice fallback term that is polite...

calling you guy, dude, bro, my friend, even a "hey there" any of these could be the person greeting you's phrase that they use to be comfortable when greeting an unfamiliar person...



I've called guys "Sir" when I've been serving them, its just a polite thing- I call some of my friends "gitface"

which is safer for me to use to someone I don't know eh?

Wow... this thread is still going???

Relapse wrote:

Ensis Ferrae wrote:Honestly... dont call me Sir.... i work for a living

those of you in the military should be familiar with this little phrase from whatever basic training/boot camp/ etc. they went to.

a screaming, yelling drill sergeant goes a long way to fixing a Sir or Ma'am problem

When I was in Marine basic, the DI's had you start every statement to them with a sir and end it with a sir, and Heaven help you if you forgot.

And heaven help you if you referred to yourself as me or I.. In the Army, only the officers are referred to as Sir. DI's or Drill Sergeants were referred to as Drill Sergeant. And the Seals/Navy have a very nasty way to refer to officers that phonetically is sounds like Sir, but I think they spell it out C.U.R.

Frazzled wrote:Its not? I thought there were British troops in norgthern Ireland? This is an informational question not a disagreement Thanny. Whats the story?

Platuan4th is right.

Ireland can refer to the Island or the Country. But in normal conversation it refers to the country.
If necessary it can be refered to as the Republic of Ireland, but only when specifically trying to distinguish it from Northern Ireland.
Northern Ireland is part of the UK (Not so many troops there these days since the peace process), but if someone means to refer to Northern Ireland they will say Northern Ireland.

So basically saying 'Ireland is part of the UK' to an Irish person is like saying 'Are you American?' to an Canadian or 'Are you Australian?' to a New Zealander.

Ensis Ferrae wrote:yeah, but you know how the army loves to glorify its officers with the Sir stuff, even in basic, they want you to address NCOs as NCOs, and officers as officers... honestly, ill take 3 Specialists over 1 lieutenant any day... you'll get more use from the SPCs

I'd take 1 Lieutenant over anything else in any branch of the military.

But then again, I'm married to her.

Platuan4th wrote:

Ensis Ferrae wrote:yeah, but you know how the army loves to glorify its officers with the Sir stuff, even in basic, they want you to address NCOs as NCOs, and officers as officers... honestly, ill take 3 Specialists over 1 lieutenant any day... you'll get more use from the SPCs

I'd take 1 Lieutenant over anything else in any branch of the military.

But then again, I'm married to her.

It's always fun to call a female lieutenant "SIR" as officialy, that's the generic term to refer to all officers. However, with the gender equality, said females usually blow a gasket and give you the yak yak for 30 minutes on the difference between 'sir' and ma'am.. Then I remind them that ma'am is short for madam and I wasn't aware that the military was pushing brothels anymore.. That usually cuts through for about 30 seconds, then more yak yak.

two_heads_talking wrote:

Platuan4th wrote:

Ensis Ferrae wrote:yeah, but you know how the army loves to glorify its officers with the Sir stuff, even in basic, they want you to address NCOs as NCOs, and officers as officers... honestly, ill take 3 Specialists over 1 lieutenant any day... you'll get more use from the SPCs

I'd take 1 Lieutenant over anything else in any branch of the military.

But then again, I'm married to her.

It's always fun to call a female lieutenant "SIR" as officialy, that's the generic term to refer to all officers. However, with the gender equality, said females usually blow a gasket and give you the yak yak for 30 minutes on the difference between 'sir' and ma'am.. Then I remind them that ma'am is short for madam and I wasn't aware that the military was pushing brothels anymore.. That usually cuts through for about 30 seconds, then more yak yak.

She doesn't mind it, she's was born and raised an AF brat(both her parents were Enlisted/NCOs), so she's knows what's what. The funniest thing was when she was acting as a higher officer's aide for a while and had the nick name "Wonder Minion" and the NCOs kept forgetting to not call her Wonder Minion(which eventually became Wonder Minion Ma'am).

It depends, I prefer to be called by my first name by people I know. Sir is ok, when I don't know the person or they don't know me.

What I find annoying is to be called Dude, I think at 59 and on the verge of being a Senior Citizen that I have passed that phase a long time ago.

The gamers in the group where I play range in age from 18 to 59 with most of them beining in their 20's or 30's. Most of the peopel in our group either call each other by their first name or last name and a few go by their web names.

So as I started by saying it depends.

Warrior 50

lol... really thats about the extent of usefulness for a LT... "minions"

its sad really, when you see a PFC training, yes TRAINING a new LT on some task thats vital to the unit's operations...


and please, dont get me started on west point, far as im concerned there's only 1 good officer in the army currently that came from that school.

Platuan4th wrote:

She doesn't mind it, she's was born and raised an AF brat(both her parents were Enlisted/NCOs), so she's knows what's what. The funniest thing was when she was acting as a higher officer's aide for a while and had the nick name "Wonder Minion" and the NCOs kept forgetting to not call her Wonder Minion(which eventually became Wonder Minion Ma'am).

Now that's a good sport. kudos to her. Us NCOs are just trouble you know..

I will confirm what several others on this thread have stated. Here in the Southern US (especially here in Texas) we have a culture of being very friendly but polite with strangers. It's very normal to refer to any stranger as "sir" or "m'am". The only exception I make is that I will often call a woman who is obviously younger than me "Miss". I do take it a bit farther than most people, though. I regard first names as being reserved for family and friends and tend to get annoyed when a stranger such as a salesman takes to calling me "Martin" (my real first name) without asking first. But much of that probably comes from my military and law enforcement background were last names are used almost exclusively.

Of course I don't call inmates "sir"...they lost that right when they got convicted. They get refered to by their last name. But that's as much agency policy as it is personal preference. It took me a while to break the habit of calling people "sir" at work when I first went to work from the prison system years ago and caught myself calling inmates (especially older ones) "sir" quite a bit in the first few months. But peer pressure and the odd look that inmates (who are not acustomed to being refered to as such) quickly broke me of that. The inmates of course refer to me by my rank, "Mr. W-----", or "boss" (a Texas prison tradition) and I would get VERY upset if one ever used my first name.

Our airsoft group tends to refer to each other by their forum call sign. Thus when I'm out playing that game it's usually "Trench", "TR", or "Trenchie". In our WW2 reenactment group, we refer to each other by our "persona" names and rank. So out there I'm "Obergefreiter Muller".
So yeah I answer to alot of things depending on were I am!

"Trench Raider"

Ensis Ferrae wrote:lol... really thats about the extent of usefulness for a LT... "minions"

its sad really, when you see a PFC training, yes TRAINING a new LT on some task thats vital to the unit's operations...


and please, dont get me started on west point, far as im concerned there's only 1 good officer in the army currently that came from that school.

Air Force has the Academy, NOT West Point. Besides, she's ROTC, NOT Academy(don't get me started on Academy Kids), and as I said, has the benefit of being raised by 2 Enlisted, so she knows to spend her first week or so observing and not ordering to get the hang of how it's normally done.

Platuan4th wrote:
Air Force has the Academy, NOT West Point. Besides, she's ROTC, NOT Academy(don't get me started on Academy Kids), and as I said, has the benefit of being raised by 2 Enlisted, so she knows to spend her first week or so observing and not ordering to get the hang of how it's normally done.

hehe, i am in the Army, so i dont deal with Academy Kids, except for when im in the states because my current home station is Ft. Carson... right there in the same town as the Academy and i know what you mean, i think its a generalized statement to say this, but: Military Academy people are quite useless, unless you need cannon fodder (this being west point, AFA, and Navy)... the better LTs and officers come from outside influences, like ROTC, green to gold (or whatever programs the air force and navy have)



there are so many days i wish i could say, "sorry ma'am, but i dont salute west pointers" and walk a way