What does it mean when some 25 year old check out girl says…”There you go Mam” as she hands you your change?
It means you have been Mam’ed!
SHE is at LEAST 25 I just turned 38…seriously..just. Should she really be:
“Yes Mam”
“Here you Go Mam”
“Thank you Mam”.
QUIT MAMING ME!
Sigh.
Perhaps it’s manners? Or maybe it’s Karma baby.
I apologize to every single 30 something women out there who I thought I was being polite too.
I deeply regret my horrible language.
I’m sorry I “Mam’ed” you.
(Oh and Thank you to the car load of inappropriate 19 year olds who cat called and whistled at me today. You were probably drunk, but you did take a little of the sting out of my previously mentioned old lady moment!)
Barb Golden says
I think that when a clerk “maams” it s them trying to categoize you as old or something. It s not polite its disrespectful and it must be stopped!
Today I was maamed at a grocery store and I told her please don t call me maam. she looked agast and hurried off to maam some other woman. It s old fashioned and damned insulting.
If more women would speak up when they are maamed it would stop. So speak up!!
suge says
I hate when kids call me by my first name ..It Mrs.I fell they have not live long enough to call me by my first name..
J.H. says
OK, here’s the deal.
If I called you ma’am in my 6’0 tall, 180 lb. frame of southern delight, I can assure you, you would melt and probably start hearing music. ‘Moonlight feels right’ or something to that effect.
In the south we gentlemen are raised to be polite and respectful to the ladies. Especially if we don’t know them well. Age is immaterial. Of course we southerners didn’t invent the term. It was originally a British term for addressing the Queen.
And if that doesn’t float your boat then you can stay up north where I’m sure they have other names for you.
kittensarecute says
When I was 17 I worked in a self serve gas station and called a lady “ma’am” and she was so angry and yelled Ma’am at me but I was only a 17 year old kid. Okay, the first time I was ma’amed I was 19 but wore mature clothes and had a well endowed figure…. but you can see my face was so young. This was by a waiter. I murmured “I am only 19” than I get called nothing for a while, then I would get called ma’am while others thought I was a teen and this was way into my 20s. Then now a days some times I get called Miss a lot and some times I get called Ma’am a lot and when I start to get called ma’am a lot I often wonder if it’s time to change my hair or run for more botox and injections but I swear I do look very young, not like a teen but in my 20s so I don’t get why there are times I am called Miss and even kid then suddenly it’s ma’am , ma’am constantly and this is off and on , it changes. I have big eyes , full lips and hardly no wrinkles at all. Sure you can tell I am not a teen but I do not look even 35 but then there are a lot of people who don’t call me anything LMAO. They are undecided. I had 2 much older ladies call me ma’am today.