‘You don’t have to call me darlin’, darlin’’

I’m a Southerner born and bred. So I’ve been getting “sweetied,” “sweethearted,” “honeyed,” “babyed,” “sugared,” and “darlin’ed” for as long as I can remember. I’ve even been “pumpkin-pied” and “baby-caked.”

Stop reading right now if you expect me to tell you that I’ve ever been offended by it.

Found it amusing? Sweet? Annoying? Endearing? Ironic? You bet.

Words are powerful things. You don’t become a college English teacher and a writer without believing this to be true. But the person who says them, and the way in which they’re said? It changes everything.

Yes, I am fully aware that these words and others like them have been used by some to demean women. Take, for a fictional example, one of my favorite movies, the 1980 classic “Nine to Five,” starring Dolly Parton, Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin. When Dabney Coleman’s egocentric, chauvinist-on-steroids character, Franklin M. Hart, Jr., calls the women who work for him “my girls,” he’s not doing it because he considers them intellectual or workplace equals.

And thus finds himself trussed up like the sexist turkey he is.

People who use terms of endearment to demean others? I’m not talking about them. They’ve got enough to worry about.

I can completely understand that if you’re not from the South, or haven’t lived here long, you may not be used to having a perfect stranger call you “sugar.” I’m sure it’s disconcerting. I’m always thrown off guard when the woman working at my local Subway—who looks to be either my age or not much older—calls me “sweetheart.” (She’s been doing it since we were both in our twenties.)

It used to throw me off so much that once, I decided to respond in kind, just to see what she’d do.

“Can I get you anything else, sweetheart?” She asked through the Plexiglass window as she put the finishing touches on my whole wheat tuna.

“No, but thank you, sugar,” I answered, admirably straight-faced.

“Alrighty then. You have a good one.”

Didn’t phase her one bit.

I like it when older folks call me “dear.” When the precious elderly couple—dressed to the nines and walking hand-in-hand—exits our church after a meeting, sees me hauling my bedraggled children (who are usually acting like orangutans escaped from the zoo) into choir practice, and says, “How are you, dear? Look at those precious children,” I want to laugh and hug them, all at the same time. By stopping me, by exuding sweetness, and by addressing me as such, they make me feel dear when I certainly didn’t before.

And the gentleman about my dad’s age who runs the country gas station I always stop at on my way to the family lake house? He can call me “sweetheart” any time he wants to. He rings my gas and purchases up with a smile, talks about the weather, tells me where the highway patrolmen are hiding out, and always wishes me a nice day.

I do find it funny when the hostess at a local restaurant where we occasionally order takeout calls me “baby.” It irks my husband—she calls him “baby,” too—but mainly because, one, she’s much younger than he is; and two, let’s just say she’s not as customer service-oriented as she perhaps could be. (When my husband goes to pick up our food he always has to wait a while to get her attention, even if she’s standing right in front of him.)

“Calling me ‘baby’ doesn’t fix the fact she told me there wasn’t an order up for us when she hasn’t walked over to see that it’s sitting in a box five feet away with our name on it,” he recently grumbled. True.

Speaking of husbands, we—my husband and I—use terms of endearment rather frequently and in various ways, like many couples. “Babe” is our fallback. I don’t know how it happened, but it works for us. Occasionally, we use “darlin’,” but mostly in jest.

Now, “sweetheart”? In my marriage, “sweetheart” isn’t so sweet. It’s code for “For heaven’s sake, why haven’t you done that one simple thing I’ve asked you to do a hundred times already, you wonderful nincompoop?”

Or something along those lines.

The “sugars,” “sweethearts,” “darlin’s,” “honeys,” and “dears”—I’m used to them. I can’t imagine life without them. I like them.

I know this will frustrate some. I know there are those who will disagree. I know there is a deeper, more philosophical argument, and that if we wanted to we could get down to the nitty gritty of the matter, talk all about sexism and chauvinism and name-calling and a whole host of other really important stuff. But I don’t want to, at least not today.

Don’t be mad, darlin’.