@slothrop I've asked this before, but what do I do with my polite "ma'am" and "sir"s that are in my speech patterns?

I think last time I asked, we settled on "comrade", and 86'd "boss" or "jefe". But, I still haven't been able to fix my speech.

It's stupid, but I do have a no-ill-intent reason to want a clear, recognizable gender

@BoydStephenSmithJr Understandable, but lazy.

You could always go for “oi!”

(I constantly update my speech patterns for lots of things, so this doesn’t look like a relevant hurdle.)

@slothrop Oh, it's not for trying to get someone's attention. It's primarily used for short responses like "No, Sir" and "Yes, Ma'am" or "Thank you, Ma'am" or "You're Welcome, Sir", to show the polite respect that we all at least pretend to have in "The (U.S.) South".

It needs to be something that is grammatically a stand-in for a name, but for someone I haven't exchanged names with.

If I have exchanged names with them, I'll just use the term that matches their preferred pronouns if not their name.

I find "Hey!" or "Hey, you!" is usually sufficient for getting someone's attention.