This happened a few days back. An elderly person who is a relative, comes very often to our house to meet my father-in-law. As usual they were in midst of some conversation when they called me. The other person asked me how do we address a person in an English letter writing. It depends on whom we are writing the letter to. I also added that there are 3 types of letters which are formal, semi formal & informal. He interrupted me in midst of my explanation and asked whether we can “Dear Sir”? I again replied that we can use Dear or Respected as the case and country may be. He was not at all interested what my reply was and he always tries to impose whatever his opinion is. So normally I avoid conversations with him using either of these: Yes or No or I don’t know.
He started explaining
that usage of ‘Sir’ is wrong and so on. It is an abbreviation for Slave I Remain.
I didn’t want to argue as I too was not in a position to give him a convincing
explanation and moreover wanted to avoid an unnecessary argument with an
unimportant person in my life thereby not hurting his ego. But I had to discuss
about ‘Sir’ thing (not about actual incident) as letter writing is an important
aspect of our life especially professional wise, though Email has replaced
conventional letters. But the format remained more or less the same.
And thus, I
got to know that Sir is actually derived from the word ‘Sire’. Sire is used to
address a person of
importance or in a position of authority, as a lord. It is a respectful form of
address for reigning kings in Europe, ultimately being related to Latin word
for senior. The female equivalent form for which is dame or Madam.