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Southerners have historically used the word "honey" as a term of endearment. It's used among family members often.

Like the term, "bless your heart" it can be used for sincere sympathy or as an insult.  It all depends on the tone.

Someone called me "hon" yesterday at walmart, and I got a real kick out of it, as it made me think about this thread.

Every second spent in walmart is a potential crash into another's cart as people recklessly enter and exit aisles from the main runways. We say, "excuse me" and "yer fine" more times per one trip to walmart than is said over the course of an entire month elsewhere. LOL!!

Anyway a lady, younger than me by decades but not old, almost crashed into me as she bolted out of an aisle, and she said in a most sincere and friendly tone, "Oh sorry about that, hon." I received it as the true warmth and friendliness that it actually was; and replied with a grin.

On another thread a woman mentioned that we gals have excellent intuition. No doubt about it. We know when we are being put down or condescended to; and we know when someone gives us a nickname out of sheer warmth or nonchalance.

That being said, it does rile me when female gas station cashiers in their twenties and thirties call me sweetie. I know they are not being condescending or insulting on purpose, but it is condescending and insulting all the same. I always think to myself that I wish they would call me ma'am. The reason they don't is the female assholes who don't want to be called ma'am because they think it "ages" them. As if their being clearly past the prime of their looks is not obvious in a million other ways. The same dopes refuse to let men open doors for them. They deserve the doors hitting them in the ass!

I earned every single one of my gray hairs the hard way in the school of hard knocks. I've earned the right to be called ma'am.You couldn't pay me to be young again, although, of course, I do rue the loss of my youthful beauty. What woman wouldn't? But there lies the greatest opportunity for penance and mortification offered to the intuitive sex - humility and resignation before the indefatigable and unrelenting ravages of Father Time. 

Yes, honey, yes, dear, yes, sweetie, you may call me ma'am .... LOL!!!!

I'm a sucker for English period dramas if they keep them clean. And I just love listening to Britons talk. I love all those pet names. I think they add culture to conversation. Let us never forget that these little cooings pre-date the revolution. They have their place in society. What galls many people is the misuse and abuse of common and proper courtesy. People don't know when and when not to become more familiar. We've lost so much having lost the social hierarchy.

I forgot to mention something above, and that is that I always go out of my way to treat clerks, waitresses, and other service personnel with extreme courtesy. I often chat them up and thank them, and even call them ma'am or sir. They always respond amiably and engage. These are the little things in life that make for more general pleasantness.

What irks me more than anything is a lack of courtesy. For instance, when I am walking in a neighborhood and I pass by a person at point blank range and they ignore me and refuse to greet. Sorry to have to say this, but it is almost 100% of the time young people. Sometimes you greet them first and they still ignore you. It really galls me. I am certain that this lack of breeding is not only due to their parents, but their indoctrination and incarceration over the course of 12 years in public detention centers, otherwise called schools. Nothing strips the humanity, the compassion, the congeniality, the initiative, and the manners out of human beings as much as those cσncєnтrαтισn cαмρs for kiddies.

Wherever I go, whenever I find an adolescent or a young person who is engaging and conversational, it really makes my day. It always reminds me that human nature is indomitable and will respond to manifold grace when God intervenes in the world.