LotR -- Book 1 - Chapter 03 - Three Is Company

[Kuruharan]

Until relatively recent times (within my lifetime even), in England at least, it was quite common for public servants, shopkeepers and the like to address members of the public and their customers as "sir".

I currently work in retail in the US and it is still considered a very good idea to refer to customers with the respectful terms such as “sir,” at least in my part of the country. However, we are allowed to refer to our supervisors by their first names. At this point I could launch into an exposition of why I think “superficial informalism” is a bad thing in situations that do not support informal relations very well, but this is probably not the time for it .