Men age 40 and above: How do you address males a generation (or more) younger than you if you don’t know their name?

14 comments

1. My go to for younger is ‘dude’ for older it’s ‘man’ as in…

   Hey dude/man, nice to meet you, I’m…

2. Atleast in my opinion “young man” is respectful for anyone younger. Terms change every few years or so. Currently I hear more of “ma’ dude” whereas “bruh” use to be “bro” 10 years back.

   “Young man” seems about right.

3. I’m 42. I say ‘(hey) man!’

   I put the *hey* in parentheses because it kinds of depends on the situation

4. I just turned 40 this year, but I can’t imagine myself referring to someone as “young man.”

   Depending on the situation I’d probably use “sir” or just “man.”

   “Excuse me, sir, you dropped your phone.” or “Hey man, you dropped your phone.”

5. I almost never use “sir” or “mister” for people of any age. It’s not really an intentional thing… never really gave it much thought before now. If I need to get a stranger’s attention, I usually start with an “excuse me.”

6. “Hello.”

7. Everybody is Sir. It’s my way of opening with respect but my greetings change after that depending on if they hold that respect or not.

8. “Hey there chopper.”

   “Howdy Buddy”

   “Whaaaaats up my dude”

9. Hey!, while looking directly at them Is generally my go to when I’m forced to have to get the attention of someone i don’t know.

   I generally don’t address anybody by any names, even people i know.

10. In Ham Radio world, we use YM for Young Man for anyone or more commonly “OM” for Old Man and the difference is that YM is always used for boys and OM is always used for male friends, but the age association is not there. So you could use Young Man for any guy and Old Man for all of your friends.

    We use YL for “young ladies” and XYL for our wives as in “Ex Young Ladies”. Surprisingly enough, this seems to work pretty well. The wives seem to get a kick out of the XYL tag.

11. ‘Oi, you.’

12. First, I call them “men” and not the misandrist feminist cowshit “males” like some dumb animals.

    From what I see on media it is popular with younger men just to say “hey.”

13. I literally call everyone Bro, kid:bro, boss:bro, female co-worker:bro… bro has no limits.

14. I’m in my early 20s and 2 of my friends are in their late 30s and 40s, i just call them dude and they call me dude. Just call everyone a dude, dude.